The Wolf of Wall Street has its moments but it is director Martin Scorsese’s weakest attempt at film-making, says Aseem Chhabra.If I was 20-something and Leonardo DiCaprio (I mean DiCaprio playing Jordan Belfort) ran a cult, I would have certainly joined it.
Even now, as I watched DiCaprio’s performance (perhaps his career best) in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street I marvelled at what a fine actor he is.
High on cocaine he stands before his employees at the Long Island-based brokerage house, Stratton Oakmont, speaking like an evangelist, telling them there are no virtues in being poor and that greed is indeed good.
'There is no nobility in poverty,' Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) says, sounding just like Gordon Gekko, the character made famous by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street.
In one of the best scenes in the film, the young Jordan listens to his mentor (Matthew McConaughey) give him pointers on how to become a successful Wall Street trader.
They include self-pleasure and snorting a lot of cocaine.
And soon enough, Belfort becomes a snake, ready for the kill, preying on his unsuspecting salaried/retired, middle class customers.
'Good luck on the subway ride home,' Belfort yells out to an FBI agent (played by Kyle Chandler) in a rather cutting tone. Every New York City subway rider in the audience must have felt somewhat insulted by DiCaprio’s condescending tone.
In another fun scene he sits in a London park with his wife’s British aunt (Joanna Lumley) making financial deals, while also flirting with her and thinking “Is she f****** hitting on me?”
While Wolf is a DiCaprio show, it is also Scorsese’s attempt to examine yet again the dark side of the American dream, much as he did with his Italian mafia saga Goodfellas, the Irish immigrant story Gangs of New York, and the Jewish mob tale in Casino.
It is once again a testosterone-infused larger-than-life story that the 71-year-old director skillfully explores and brings to the screen.
I am told that Wolf is a faithful adaptation of the autobiography of the same name written by the disgraced Jordan Belfort, who spent 22 months in a federal facility reserved for wealthy criminals.
Author Belfort may have embellished sections of the book, but Scorsese leaves out nothing -- not the orgies with the strippers in the office, nor the very ugly dwarf-throwing party shown towards the beginning of the film.
Wolf glorifies and celebrates the maddening hedonist lifestyle lived by young brokers, getting rich quickly on the not-so-legal
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