"THE WOLF OF WALL STREET"  REVIEW

By Barry Dutter

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is about as close as we’re ever going to get to a sequel to GOODFELLAS.  It is no accident that WOLF OF WALL STREET tries as hard as it can to recreate the look, feel and tone of that 1991 gangster film. GOODFELLAS was Scorcese’s last truly great movie. It was easily the best movie of the 90s.
And its story of a cocky bad boy who is willing to do whatever it takes to get rich, and doesn’t care who he hurts along the way, is strongly echoed in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.
LEONARDO DiCAPRIO seems to be doing his  best impression of RAY LIOTTA, the star of GOODFELLAS, even down to the way he talks directly to the camera. (Even his hairstyle is the same!) Both films involve an unrepentant womanizer who starts out with a  cute, supportive wife but then moves on to a younger, hotter bad girl who seems to never really love him.
Both films have the lead character partying hard and doing copious amounts of drugs on their road to taking advantage of innocent people and making as much money as humanly possible. I guess the main difference is that the characters in GOODFELLAS are somehow more charming, more likable. They may be hoodlums who will slit your throat if you don’t pay them on time, but they will do it with style.

GOODFELLAS was all about living “the life” and not being a regular working-class schmuck. The "life" involved going to the nicest restaurants, having front show seats to the hottest shows in town, drinking and drugging all night, etc. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET  takes “the life” to the next level, with 175-foot yachts, huge mansions, and vacation homes in spots so exotic, they can only be described by Robin Leach.
The characters in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET are not murderers or robbers. Somehow, they are even worse, because they  steal your money while pretending to help you make money. At least the guys in GODFELLAS hold a gun to your face when they rob you!
In both films, the main character gets off easy. In GOODFELLAS, Henry Hill rats out his fellow gangsters so he doesn’t have to serve any time in jail. In THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, Jordan Belfort ends up serving 22 months of a three-year sentence. A quick search of Wikipedia reveals that he never paid back the $160 million in restitution he was ordered to pay his victims. He still works as a highly-paid motivational speaker.
I have to admit, I was really disappointed to learn that Belfort never really paid for his crimes. I spent three hours watching a guy commit some of the worst sins imaginable, living this decadent life, feeling secure that his downfall was inevitable, and that he would surely get what was coming to him in the end.
Instead, he gets off with a slap on the wrist. Okay, so he can never work as a stockbroker again. Big deal. He writes two best-selling novels about his crimes, and makes a ton of money as a motivational speaker today. (He even has a cameo in the friggin’ movie, for God's sake!)

The lack of punishment left me with mixed feelings about the film. In GOODFELLAS, when Henry Hill gave up his life of crime and left that world behind (seemingly) forever, it was a huge deal. Spending the rest of his life living like a schmuck in witness protection meant he could never live the high life again. That was a devastating blow to him, even worse than a long prison sentence.
But Jordan Belfort is still making tons of money, and he is still free to live how he chooses. It’s almost like the message of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is, “Do whatever it takes to make money. Rob, steal, cheat people. It doesn’t matter, because you will never have to face any real consequences.”
Setting aside those qualms, the movie is a fun ride. It’s three hours long, and unlike that other recent period “reality-based” crime drama, AMERICAN HUSTLE, it actually has enough story to sustain its length. Did THE WOLF OF WALL STREET need to be three hours? No. You could have cut an hour out of it and still kept all the important story points. Some scenes go on too long. There is a “comedy” sequence when Leonardo DiCaprio first tries explaining his new penny-stock business to his idiot friends, when they all get distracted and keep trying to change the topic. This scene could easily have been cut.
Another comedy scene where Leo and the boys discuss the finer points of dwarf-tossing, is mildly amusing,  but also would have been an easy cut. The most famous scene in GOODFELLAS, the "Do I amuse you?" scene, perhaps the single greatest movie scene of the 90s, was largely improvised by Joe Pesci. Some of these comedy scenes in TWOWS have the same "improvisatory" feel to them, but the difference is, none of the actors in the new movie has the same sense of danger that Pesci brought to his role.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET has many scenes of Leo standing with a microphone in front of his employees, trying to rouse them with an inspirational speech. We kind of get the point the first time that that his speeches are great at rallying the troops. I can definitely see why this role would appeal to any actor -- DiCario seems to spend half the movie giving speeches to his underlings. (None of my bosses ever had a microphone in the office. Maybe I would have been more motivated if they had!)
DiCaprio brings a lot of enthusiasm to his role, (It should be noted that his role involves sniffing coke off of his wife's boobs and random hookers' butts!) and his performance carries the film. You may not like the character he plays, but you definitely want to know what he's going to do next.
As a filmmaker, Scorcese remains as vital as ever, but he seems to be repeating himself more, sometimes even within the same movie. (Look at THE AVIATOR, where the story seemed to consist of: Invent a plane, bed a starlet, invent another plane, bed another starlet.)
It’s interesting to note how many movies have a hot blonde as the object of unattainable perfection, just as Hitchcock did in his best movies so long ago. Scorcese went down that road before with a never-better Sharon Stone in CASINO, and WOLF OF WALL STREET continues that tradition with the stunning Margot Robbie, an actress who I had never seen before but she has apparently been busy for years working for film and TV both here and in her native Australia.
She is quite the knock-out. She looks great in her clothes, and let’s face it, out them. This film has more nudity in it than you would expect from a 71-year-old director.
And the language! 506 F-bombs, the new record for a major Hollywood movie! (It wasn’t until I got home later and checked that I realized that someone had actually counted.)
I, for one, can’t wait till THE WOLF OF WALL STREET comes to network TV. They will either have to cut out 2 hours of cursing, or find fun, new ways of dubbing over the F-word with less offensive words. It will be the greatest editing challenge of all time, and it will be a blast to see what they come up with!
The acting in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is strong, for the most part. But I thought Jonah Hill laid it in a little thick. He was effective in a quieter role in MONEYBALL. Here, he might as well wear a sign that says, “I am a gay Jew!”
I am getting sick of Leonardo DiCaprio starring in every Scorcese movie. This Bromance needs to end. This is probably their best movie together, so it would be a great time to end their collaboration. (Maybe it’s time for Scorcese to make one last movie with Robert DiNero and Joe Pesci!)
Out of all the most acclaimed directors who came up in the 70s -- Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Brian Depalma -- Scorcese is the only one who still makes movies that matter.
It looks like WOLF OF WALL STREET will not be a huge hit for him, because a  lot of people are turned off by the subject matter. I can’t say I blame them. The film does glorify a contemptuous asshole who has no regard for all the people he hurts.
This movie takes place in the late 80s and early 90s, decades after the glamorous 60s and 70s era of GOODFELLAS.
The new movie makes you miss the days when if you didn’t like someone, you just whacked them. Everybody understood it was nothing personal. It was just business.
The characters in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET are engaged in different kind of business, it just feels a lot dirtier.