The Wolf Of Wall Street is the fifth Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese team up. This time they bring us the true story of Jordan Belfort, a stock broker who was gladly swallowed up by the sins of greed and excessive living.
The Wolf is a story of unbridled debauchery, a ride that sucked in hundreds of people and came to an end only because of obnoxiously stepping over the lines of the law.
Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) was (or is, really) a self made man who kept his eye on the prize: making money. Once shown the way of selling nonsense at the first Wall Street firm he was hired at in his early twenties, it became a race of how much money he could make and spend for the next decade or so.
It’s almost cartoonish in nature the way it’s shown. In the beginning, Jordan is shown as a nice average guy. Young, innocent (naïve), polite and ambitious. But once he gets a taste of the high life, it’s a quick decent into madness. He starts his own company, pulling in some friends with questionable morals into the fold. Jordan was only 26 when he left reality behind. Taking advantage of people left and right, more sex and drugs than a person should be able to imagine let alone experience. The addiction, lies and deceit stack up until the tower can’t get any higher and collapses on everyone.
DiCaprio really loved this role, you can see him revel in the chance to play such a character. Jonah Hill as Jordan’s main partner in crime, Donnie Azoff is absolutely perfect. The way they play off of each other is on screen chemistry that can’t be made up, they just frolic hand in hand in every scene they do.
While money can’t buy happiness, it sure does by fun. The movie shows this rollercoaster ride at it’s core, giving you a seat at what it was like to live a life like this. The build up of the lift hill (entering the industry) and then the exhilaration of gravity taking over for the rest (the success and everything it let them do). These guys had a blast doing what they did. Are drugs bad? Sure, but the bad comes at the end of the awesome parts. Is the sex with everyone in sight bad? Yes! Just ignore the relationships it ruins. Is money bad? Only if you don’t have enough to buy your way out of a pickle! Besides, if I don’t pull it in by the truckload some other jerk will!
Jordan could talk to his sales force like an emperor, his subjects hanging on his every word. You sell these stocks, this IPO, we will live on top of the hill forever! Their work day basically became a party with no rules or restrictions. They ran wild like college kids until they made so much noise that it drew attention from the Feds. The drug addiction just moved in along with the money, using one to start the day and the others to regulate that feeling until sleep eventually won out. Buying the drugs was as normal as buying food. Once entrenched, none of them even thought about getting out.
Jordan even had a chance to get out under reasonable circumstances after he draws too much heat to shake. No jail time and some fines that were more or less be a slap on the wrist. He throws the deal out of the window for his astronomical pride and obsession with money. The draw of his lifestyle was too much for him to turn his back on. Turns out when the Feds have proof of you breaking a laundry list of laws and you tell them to jump off the highest cliff they can find, they really come after you.
At just under 3 hours long, the movie shows a lifestyle of hilarious excess that matches the likes of drug king pins. It really uses that R rating to the fullest. The good times lasted for years but were cyclical in nature, much like coming on and off a drug high. Actually, it’s exactly like that as you constantly see these guys running around gacked out of their gourds at one instance and then crashing hard only to rally and do it again. When a problem came up, find a loophole to bring it back to “normal”. A life where a problem was more or less a pot hole in the street paved with gold until the hubris of the seemingly invincible could protect them no longer. The punishment comes at the end, but it’s questionable how punishment it really was (Jordan did very little time when he ultimately cooperates).
The Wolf Of Wall Street is a hell of a time that rides fast on the shoulders of it’s fantastic cast. While it shows an attitude and system born of the 1980’s and played into the 1990’s, it still fits today. Financial inequality has never been higher and the corruption of Wall Street has only strengthened its bond with the banking industry. You don’t need to look at a Hollywood movie to reflect on the troubled times we live in. You just need to see what’s in the news everyday.