With regards to this movie being based on a true story, I give it 1/5. This movie for pure entertainment, I give it 2.9/5. So why the discrepancy? I just can’t give a movie based on manipulation and fraud of people who worked hard for their money anything higher than a 1. To quote one IMDB reviewer, “It is NOT OK to rip people off; it is not OK to molest/rape women (wives included); nor is it OK to smack them around; it is not OK to drive under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol”.
When it comes to DiCaprio and Scorsese collaborations, I’ve only (now) seen 3 out of the 5 movies. I loved The Departed, hated Shutter Island, and have no desire to watch Gangs of New York or The Aviator. As for The Wolf of Wall Street, this movie looked like it would be really good. Scorsese is a very stylistic director and that’s one thing I really liked about The Departed. I was hoping that The Wolf would have that quality to it as well. Luckily enough, it does... perhaps even more.
The thing is that this movie didn’t feel like a 3 hour long movie; it felt like a long movie. By no means does it feel like it was only 90 minutes long, but it also doesn’t feel like it was 180 minutes. A happy medium was achieved, and some parts were much better than others. There are several times in which you think you’re watching the same thing you did 5 minutes prior.
The breakdown for me would go something like this: in the first hour of the movie, when Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) was recapping how he got to where he was it was perfectly paced (there were a lot of things being thrown at you story wise and visually). It slowed down a bit in the second hour and slowed down even more in the third hour.
There were a lot of obscene parts, to which I think that a certain amount of it would have been fine, however, Scorsese took it over the top. There was an overflow of debauchery that truly had no purpose and could have been left out. I’m not saying it should have all been taken out, I’m just saying that had it been done to a tasteful level, it wouldn’t have removed me from the movie as much as it did.
I read some reviews on IMDB in which people said that they would have liked to known what happens to the victims of Belfort’s fraud, however, I was content without it. I went into this movie expecting to watch the glorification of Jordan Belfort’s real life story of him building his company from the ground up. That’s what I got. I didn’t think it was necessary to add another hour to this movie just to see what happens to the victims – it’s the assholes story that I wanted to see. I hope its obvious that I don’t support fraud, however, when it comes to a 3 hour long movie, I’d like to be entertained.
Although I did love all the actors and thought that they all played their parts very well, there actually wasn’t any character development for pretty much every character; including Jordan Belfort.
I had no idea that Matthew McConaughey was in it. He didn’t have a big role, but he looked the part for sure. I was surprised to learn that he improvised some of his lines!
Jonah Hill was another solid actor in this movie, but when it comes to the character himself, there wasn’t much there. I also want to mention that the make-up/outfit that he wore was weird and didn’t really work for me. There was something about it that didn’t sit right with me.
I said this about DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby, and I’ll say it again about him in this movie, he was a bit too old for the part. Its obvious that they tried to make him look for youthful, but his age does come through. His [old] looks aside, I think he did a fantastic job as Jordan Belfort. There were some parts of the script that were really good; mainly when Belfort was delivering his speeches. You cant help but hang on to every word. I loved his voice over and the fact that he did at times talk directly to the camera. I felt that he was talking to me; and it worked for this movie. He has that charisma that just draws you in; and that’s what a con man does.
After 3 hours of staring at a screen my eyes hurt. There was so much visuals on screen that I had to focus on, that I turned my laptop off when the movie was over.
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