New Release Review: 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

If you're sat in the cinema watching the credits roll, and you're not making a sound, nor is anyone else around you, odds are you just saw a film of great import; probably a true story, unflinchingly told. But there is another, rarer, reason for such silence, known as the 'Well... Where to begin?'

A bit of background first: The Wolf of Wall Street is the sort-of true tale of Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker with no moral compass. If you've seen Boiler Room or Wall Street, or any number of documentaries, then you'll get the gist of what Jordan's up to. For those that haven't seen the above, it's not terribly important that you know. Belfort (played by a very game Leonardo DiCaprio) tries to explain what he's doing on a few occasions - talking directly to the camera - but then waves it off, telling us not to worry about it. It's illegal, what else do you really need to know? Director Martin Scorsese does spend a bit of time showing the ins and outs of Belfort's double dealings, but since that's been well documented before (again, see the films above) he's more interested in showing just why Belfort would do what he's doing, and apparently the only way to get that across is with three hours of every known kind of objectification.

After walking for a spell, and spending as much time as possible avoiding it, my companion for The Wolf of Wall Street gave their thoughts on the film:

Companion: "Well... When it worked, it really really worked."
Me: "Yeah? Which bits really worked?"
Companion: "Um... There- There was that bit that... Uh..."

They'd forgotten. The film was so long, so of-a-kind, that little stood out. Which is a strange sentence to write considering the epic excesses to which we're witness; but that is what's hobbled it: it's a film about excess, but the film itself gives in to that excess. Not twenty minutes into the film Scorsese tell us all we needed to know on the subject: Matthew McConaughey's senior stockbroker, a dapper figure that Belfort looks up to, takes the young man to lunch and gives him the equivalent of Wall Street's 'Greed is good' speech. In his slightly unhinged discourse we can see both the appeal of what he offers whilst hearing how hollow it sounds. Spending the rest of the film showing just what this well dressed Mephistopheles was offering goes from being salacious to tedious before we're even out of the first act.

Many have accused the film of being misogynistic. I don't think it's misogynistic but I do think that it makes one too many tonal missteps - making it far too easy to level the charge. Scorsese's attempts to make the excesses of sex and drugs distasteful, by dialling things to eleven, might have worked if used sparingly; but because it's relentless, because he makes it the entire reason for the films existence (and that isn't much of a reason for existing) he becomes complicit in the things he's shown. It doesn't feel like he's stepped back and asked us to come up with our own conclusions - instead it feels like he's taking part.

I've got no problem with sex and drugs. I watch HBO. My tolerance is pretty high. But The Wolf of Wall Street is 60-minutes of plot, and 120-minutes of sex and drugs. A ratio that Game of Thrones wouldn't even try. The film is all about the high; perhaps you'll get caught up in it, but when you come down from it you'll struggle to explain its virtues.

Overall: 4/10