The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Any reader who isn’t a stranger around these parts knows that I’m an enormous Martin Scorsese fan, and I’m of the opinion that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of our finest actors.  So believe me when I say that The Wolf of Wall Street, the pair’s fifth collaboration in more than a decade, is undoubtedly their best work since 2006’s The Departed (and maybe even since Goodfellas – your mileage may vary).

DiCaprio stars as the titular Wolf, Jordan Belfort, who uses his Wall Street savvy to start up his own barely legal brokerage.  Amid the debauchery and depravity of the excesses at Stratton Oakmont, Belfort attracts the attention of the FBI while juggling the demands of his second wife Naomi (newcomer Margot Robbie) and his partner Donnie (Jonah Hill).

With Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese returns to the true-crime biopic genre he perfected with Goodfellas and Casino; indeed, Wolf could be seen as the third in a thematic trilogy of rise-and-fall narratives ripped from the headlines, and it certainly deserves that place of prominence in Scorsese’s repertoire.  Wolf is compelling and engaging, a prime example of a filmmaker not content to rest on his laurels; instead, he reminds us just how good he can be.  And for a film that never feels like it’s three hours long, never elicits so much as a bathroom break or a glance at a watch, Wolf is one of the most engrossing films I’ve seen all year.

As far as engrossing goes, let’s hope that this is the year that finally nets DiCaprio his Best Actor trophy at the Oscars (though he’ll have some steep competition from Christian Bale in American Hustle).  DiCaprio’s been turning in consistent work for the better part of a decade, and it’s high-time the Academy stops treating him like a bridesmaid and recognizes the total immersion DiCaprio undergoes into this character.  Aside from the verisimilitude of DiCaprio’s impression of Belfort’s physicality and mannerisms, he proves himself deft with a range of behaviors, from slapstick humor to deadpan disgust, from swaggering braggadocio to a whole range of addictions.  Belfort is such a multilayered character, and the film offers DiCaprio so many different opportunities to flesh out facets of this fascinating figure.

Yet with so many tonal oscillations, The Wolf of Wall Street never feels confused or inconsistent.  While some reviewers are bemoaning the film’s indulgent excesses, I have to think that’s part of the point; Scorsese is so effective at recreating Belfort’s world that he manages to trick us into thinking he’s not on our side.  And just like in Goodfellas, we’d be remiss if we didn’t think there was at least something seductive about Belfort’s lifestyle.  Whether it’s the money, the sex, or the feeling of invincibility, we’re meant to understand in some way – and perhaps even empathize with – Belfort’s decisions.

And Wolf of Wall Street plays with so many of the great Scorsese themes that it deserves high marks as another fascinating iteration of a great director’s most significant statements – the perils of venality, the inevitability of self-destruction, the coincidental slip-up.  In fact, one might even lump Wolf of Wall Street in with the greatest of Greek tragedy – we have our protagonist cursed with a fatal flaw (as with most Scorsese characters, it’s ambition) that becomes the instrument of his own implosion.  But if that’s too highfalutin a comparison for you, just remember Henry Hill’s closing monologue from Goodfellas about how the road through your dreams ends in being a schnook, eating egg noodles with ketchup.

In an era where one-percenters are the popular scapegoat, it’s refreshing to see a film that addresses the issue without heavy-handed moralizing about the evils of capitalism.  Instead, Scorsese presents the subject on its own terms, with an invigorating honesty that asks the audience to draw its own inescapable conclusions.  It’s a master class in respect and rewards for the audience, anchored by one of the year’s best performances.

The Wolf of Wall Street is rated R “for sequences of strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language throughout, and for some violence.”  Man, is this movie wildly inappropriate.  We’ve got a bevy of naked men and women on parade (sometimes literally), more drug abuse than you know what to do with, an estimated 500 F-bombs, and a few mild fisticuffs.