"The year I turned 26 I made $49 million, which really
pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week." The bragging
voiceover sets the tone. The Wolf of Wall Street is a tale told by a man
revelling in his escapades, proudly showing off the spoils of his criminal
activity. As Jordan Belfort, Leonard DiCaprio turns to address the audience
directly in the middle of a scene and begins explaining the mechanics behind his
IPO swindle, but then he breaks off: "You know what? You’re probably not
following what I’m saying. The question is, “Was it legal?” Absolutely not."
He knows that we're not here to gain an insight into the financial workings of
Wall Street in the early 1990s, but to be entertained by the debauched,
hedonistic lifestyles of Belfort and his band of thieves.
In many ways, The Wolf of Wall Street feels like the
completion of the loose thematic trilogy that Scorsese began with Goodfellas in
1990 and continued with Casino in 1995. In these films we see the rise and
establishment of a criminal operation, before watching it finally crumble,
leaving our protagonists with nowhere to go but back to living their lives
"like a schnook." The difference with The Wolf of Wall Street is that
it is played explicitly for laughs -
being the closest thing Scorsese has made to a pure comedy since After Hours 30
years ago – but the broad hilarity is frequently undercut by grotesque,
horrific scenes. Within the first 15 minutes, as a wild celebration rages in
the offices of Belfort's Stratton Oakmont firm, we see a young woman volunteer
to have her head shaved by the baying mob around her for $10,000. Scorsese presents
this environment as a Bacchanal, with Belfort as the young emperor indulging
his every whim.
This wealth of outrageous material seems to have brought the
best out of both Scorsese and DiCaprio. Scorsese's camera thrusts and soars
through Belfort's glittering but sordid world, mimicking the drug and
testosterone-fuelled energy of the film's characters and maintaining a
relentless pace throughout the film's three hours. Scorsese is now in his 70s,
but The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't feel like the product of a filmmaker in his
dotage, with the audacity and verve of this picture matching his most dynamic
work from across the past forty years. His fifth collaboration with DiCaprio
also marks the point at which he has unlocked something within the actor –
DiCaprio is a consistently bold and intelligent performer who has given many
fine performances, but he has never popped off the screen in the way he does
here. This is a magnificent display of movie star charisma, which seduces us
even as we are repelled by Belfort's behaviour. He comes to life when taking
the microphone and addressing his acolytes, empowering them to greater acts of
greed and basking in their adoration as he leads them in a chest-thumping
tribal chant. This is the same man we see crawling and drooling on the floor
later on, reduced to an infant state by the drugs he has ingested – DiCaprio makes
Belfort a figure both chilling and ridiculous.
Can you stand three hours in such loathsome company? The
Wolf of Wall Street is an excessive film about excess, with Scorsese continually
pushing his actors to fresh moral lows and comedic highs, but it's all to a
clear point. Against the boys' club at the centre of the film, Scorsese places
supporting actors who lend some perspective; Cristin Milioti and Margot Robbie
as Belfort's two canny wives, Joanna Lumley's delicious "seen it all,
darling" cameo and, most potently, Kyle Chandler as the FBI agent trying
to bring him to justice. Chandler represents the ordinary working-class guy who
can occasionally gaze with envy at the lifestyles of the rich and famous but who
ultimately has to get back to the mundane business of trying to maintain law
and order. And what is his reward for taking down this swaggering crook? The
juxtaposition of Belfort relaxing in a jail that resembles a holiday resort
while Chandler sits disconsolately on the same subway he takes every day
hammers the point home.
Scenes like that make the very idea that The Wolf of Wall
Street somehow endorses or glorifies Belfort's lifestyle seem absurd to me. I
found much of the movie exhilarating and hilarious, but with a troubling undertone
that became more prominent as the film progressed, as he turned on his family
and escaped any serious censure for his crimes. Some have attacked the film for
failing to deliver a morally satisfying conclusion by making Belfort face the
consequences of his actions, but it's hardly Martin Scorsese's place to impose
such punishment if society as a whole has failed to do so. Scorsese simply shows
us everything that Jordan Belfort is, and everything he represents, and then
leaves it to us to make our own moral judgment on what we have witnessed. The
final shot poses a lingering question – what are we to do about people like
Jordan Belfort? Do we take action, or do we simply sit and gaze slack-jawed at
their destructive antics, wondering what it would be like to be that guy?