The Wolf of Wall Street

A blatant overabundance of wretched excess.  Drug abuse and drug addled behavior.  Sexual depravity.  Overindulgence of everything under the sun.  This is why ‘they’ hate us.  The Wolf of Wall Street was over the top in every possible category, including the run time and Leo’s pop-locking.  You almost get the sense that Marty and Leo may have been a little bit too close to the material when they filmed this, nahmean?  I kid/I joke.  Sorta...  Put it this way, the profanity in the opening scene has nothing to do with what was said.  Forever seared in my mental rolodex is the indelible image of a normal straw being misused in two of the wrong orifices- it’s filed under “CRAP I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNSEE.” 

Anyway, don't believe the hype about the Wolf.  Spike Lee's Oldboy was better (not groundbreaking but a better movie).

On the bright side, I think the Matthew McConaughey chest thumping humming scene is weird and unforgettable - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iszwuX1AK6A&t=1m48s

VITALS

THE! Martin Scorsese (The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Hugo, Cape Fear, Casino, Good Fellas, The Color of Money, Raging Bull, and on and on and on…) – Director

Terence Winter (Get Rich or Die Trying, HBO’s Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire) – Screenwriter

Jordan Belfort (source material) – Writer

Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained, Inception) – Jordan Belfort

Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike, Dallas Buyers Club) – Mark Hanna

Jonah Hill (21 Jump Street, This is the End) – Donnie Azoff

Margot Robbie (About Time, TV’s Pan Am) – Naomi Lapaglia

Cristin Milioti (Sleepwalk With Me, TV’s How I Met Your Mother)– Teresa Petrillo

Kyle Chandler (Argo, Broken City) – Agent Patrick Denham

Jon Bernthal (Snitch, TV’s The Walking Dead) – Brad Bodnick

Katarina Cas (The Guard, and some stuff I never heard of) – Chantalle Bodnick

Other notable cast members include the likes of Rob Reiner, Kenneth Choi, PJ Byrne, Shea Whigham, Mackenzie Meehan (she’s on my watchlist), Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, and Brian Sacca.

IF YOU MUST KNOW

The long and short of the story is that Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) is a very ambitious guy who comes to NYC to be a stockbroker.  No sooner is Belfort exposed to the “life” of a successful broker, as demonstrated to him by Mark Hanna (McConaughey) in the short time he worked under Hanna, is he seduced by the idea of such a life.  Ironically, as soon as he realizes his dream is underway the proverbial rug is pulled right out from under him.  Belfort makes great gobs of cash preying on the middle class and working class schmos who don’t know any better by snuckering them into buying penny stocks that pay the brokers 50% commissions.  “What a country!” (that’s from Yakov Smirnov, for the youngins.)  Needless to say it all turns to crap when he gets too big for his britches and – SPOILER ALERT!!! - one thing leads to another federal investigation and charges being filed by the F.B.I. and S.E.C.  Of course, that isn’t the end of the story.  There’s a bit more, but you’ll have to read the book or bear the three-hour tour yourself.

Not Marty or Leo’s best, but the acting was top notch.  Cinematography was flawless.  The writing was interesting… to a point.  But you can only feed me so much of this kind of nonsense before it becomes positively platitudinous.  And somewhere around the one hundred and forty minute mark I began counting the stitches and grooves in my seat cushion – that’s not a good look, Marty.  I know the book is a shining testament to depravity with a glint of self-examination and redemption, but dayum!  I know I’m getting old when I say this - if I would’ve seen one more booby or shaven va-jay-jay, I would have lost my lunch.  Don’t get me wrong, I love’m with unmatched passion (believe dat!), but if ya keep putting it up on a 22ft by 52ft screen… I’m real cool, Marty.  Slow down.  You’re the director.  Direct and edit.  Next time you want to keep as true as possible to a borderline sociopathic demented drug addict’s tell all book, let’s not and say that we did, okay? 

I won’t cuss out Martin or Leo (mainly because of Margot and Katarina), but I was real close to demanding my paper back.  Real close.  But then I saw 47 Ronin today… that is a game changer.   On a scale of The Departed (5) to From Justin to Kelly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kbtsfZjhk - (1)… 47 Ronin lands at a shaky 1.5 and puts the Wolf’s one hundred-eighty minutes of ADHD, crack-fueled, coked-up cinematic debauchedness into perspective.  It’s better than I felt it was when I left the theater.

IMTHATDUDE gives The Wolf of Wall Street: 3

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.