Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Based on the memoir of a convicted fraudster, The Wolf of Wall Street has suffered extensive pre-release fatigue thanks to the dogged media questioning of its ethical position. Will it promote illegality? Will it glamorise dishonest lifestyles? Will it be able to stop the audience thinking for itself? This is all predictable stuff for maestro Martin Scorsese, who has built a career on seducing viewers with the glittering highs of gangster life. Whether or not those questions are satisfactorily answered according to a strict, pre-ordained moral code, however, does not necessarily impinge on The Wolf of Wall Street’s quality.

Like many of Martin Scorsese’s productions, we follow a man who finds himself dangerously in at the deep end of ill-gotten affluence. This time it is Jordon Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ambitious yuppie who climbs the Wall Street ladder by founding his own company, Stratton Oakmont, and trading illegally. He hires a bunch of frat-boy buddies, all part-time weed dealers, and builds the company into a sickening behemoth of corporate greed. All is done, of course, at the expense of ‘ordinary’ Americans. This money is then spent on himself: drink, drugs and debauchery. He becomes addicted to Quaaludes (look them up), has affairs and crashes diverse vehicles.

Needless to say, DiCaprio is faultless, as usual playing the tortured and charismatic protagonist. When he performs the manic sales pitches to his adoring employees, like a warped Sermon on the Mount, we are offered a glimpse of how the actor works. Through colossal force of personality, DiCaprio pulls the viewers into his pulsating eyes, and I suspect that this is close to the real Belfort. Jonah Hill injects much mirth as Belfort’s number two, Donnie Azoff, a cousin-marrying loudmouth who exudes an aura of sweaty perversion. Margot Robbie plays Belfort’s wife. At just 23, this must have been challenging in such a chauvinistic film, and with a director who almost exclusively films from a male perspective. Various other names (McConaughey, Lumley, Dujardin) pop up magnificently.

A lot of what you see on-screen is not cinematic fabrication – bombastic Belfort really did indulge in antics that make Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas look like Last of the Summer Wine. At first, it is dazzling. Then it becomes nauseating. By the end, you are repelled. It’s all fluorescent teeth and Italian loafers at Stratton Oakmont, where Friday night celebrations involve copious cocaine, high-class hookers and more psychotic laughter than a mad hatters’ convention. Standing at three sickening hours, even Gordon Gekko would be put off his popcorn.

So are the stylish peaks of the first half adequately answered by the mortal troughs of the second? If hubris does not subside into nemesis, then the film is simply an advert for immorality, the critics cry. I personally believe that it does: Belfort is clearly a pig and the fact that he gets away with it makes us hate him all the more. There will of course be some whooping young chaps at Canary Wharf Cineworld, but should art be banned for fear of a minority misconstruing its morals? There are always going to be criminals who enjoy Scarface, soldiers who think Saving Private Ryan looks fun, and greedy sociopaths who want to emulate Belfort. Scorsese doesn’t show the victims, focusing instead on the bullies. But he presents Belfort as undoubtedly a wrong ’un; a crazed maniac who would abuse strangers for sport if he gave them a second thought.

Great fun and very funny, The Wolf whizzes along like any good epic. People sometimes claim that Scorsese produces one masterpiece per decade, and this certainly looks to be his 2010s magnum opus. What Scorsese does so well is to let the viewer make up their own mind: this is exactly what you should do with The Wolf of Wall Street.