The Wolf of Wall Street

The films of Scorsese are typically fraught with an over the top approach of getting our attention and keeping it throughout the film's entire running time. If anyone watches films often, you will know this, but his newest "The Wolf of Wall Street", took that concept up many notches in order to grasp our attention and then some.

Believe it or not this IS a true story. In 1987, stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes an entry-level position at a Wall Street firm headed up by Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) who shows Belfort the ropes of Wall Street early on. By the early 1990s, while still in his 20's, Belfort founds his own firm, Stratton Oakmont. Together with his trusted lieutenant, Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and an oddball, merry band of brokers, Belfort makes a huge fortune by defrauding wealthy investors out of millions. However, while Belfort and his cronies partake in a hedonistic brew of sex, drugs and thrills whether in or out of the office, the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) and the FBI headed up by Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) close in on his empire of excess in order to thwart his wrongdoings.

Others to round out the cast are Margot Robbie as Naomi Lapaglia, Belfort's wife, Rob Reiner as Max Belfort, Jordan's dad, Jon Bernthal as Brad, Jon Favreau as Manny Riskin, Jean Dujardin as Jean Jacques Saurel, Joanna Lumley as Aunt Emma, Cristin Milioti as Teresa Petrillo, Jordan's ex-wife, Christine Ebersole as Leah Belfort, Jordan's mom, Shea Whigham as Capt. Ted Beecham, P.J. Byrne as Nicky 'Rugrat' Koskoff, Kenneth Choi as Chester Ming, Brian Sacca as Robbie 'Pinhead' Feinberg, Henry Zebrowski as Alden 'Sea Otter' Kupferberg, Ethan Suplee, as Toby Welch, Barry Rothbart as Peter DeBlasio, Jake Hoffman as Steve Madden, Katarina Cas as Chantelle, Mackenzie Meehan as Hildy Azoff, Donnie's wife, and Jon Spinogatti as Nicholas the Butler.

This was brilliantly directed by film legend Martin Scorsese ("Mean Streets" 73, "Taxi Driver" '76, "Raging Bull" '80, "The King of Comedy", '82, "The Color of Money" '86, "Goodfellas" '90, "The Age of Innocence" '93, "Casino" '95, "Gangs of New York" '02, "The Aviator" '04, "The Departed" '06, "Shutter Island" '10, "Hugo" '11) and many others. His pacing and ability to get his actors to emit the right emotion at the most strategic moment is unsurpassed. It was written by Terence Winter based on Jordan Belfort's book. This where the problem was with this. This was way too long of a running time (3 hours) to justify the plot of this story. As I said early on, why this guy had to go on and on and on about how slimy, crooked and manipulative this guys were was so unnecessary. I mean, I got it in spades! It was like beating a dead horse--keep beating the horse and it's still dead, not more dead. And the gratuitousness was way too much, even by Scorsese's standards. Again, I got it. Unfortunately, the meatiest of the roles in this was not in this but for a very short time. This was by McConaughey as Hanna. What a performance! Kudos!

If you're a Scorsese fan, you'll love this, and if you're not, you can appreciate how well the film was made, and it was, however, this is rated R for a reason. This is definitely not one for the kids, because many adults will be squirming in their seats as this running time goes on and on.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                          Rated: R                            180mins.