And if it were just about creating laughs, then there would be no problem.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) MOVIE
Even though it’s from a director with a legendary pedigree, the movie is even more outlandish, unwieldy, and uninhibited as its fellow 2013 comedies This Is the End and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Taken solely as a comedy, The Wolf of Wall Street is slam-dunk. Narratively, that’s really all it is-a guy trying to get to his car-but it’s a scene where the unencumbered runtime and DiCaprio’s insane performance work together in perfect harmony. To provide a brief example, one of my favorite scenes from 2013 is a drugged-out Belfort trying to drag himself to his car. The fearlessness comes from DiCaprio’s willingness to do whatever it takes for a laugh no matter how depraved, obscene, repulsive, or bizarre. Belfort is certainly an ugly human being, but it’s all covered up with good looks and glamour. When we describe a performance as “fearless” performance, we usually mean it’s “soul-bearing” or “ unrelentingly ugly”. We expect someone like Jonah Hill to provide this kind of comedy, and he brings some nice spontaneity and improvisation to the dialogue, but he and everyone else are completely overshadowed by DiCaprio. There are plenty of actors who can do wild, silly, and bombastic, but none of them could have been as surprising as DiCaprio. The static story would begin to feel tiresome were it not for DiCaprio’s manic, unhinged performance. The director has put us inside the head of a borderline sociopath, and it’s a fun ride as we see Jordan sink to new levels of depravity, but the ride is a roller coaster: the movement is exhilarating, but it never goes anywhere. Almost every scene could easily be reduced and there are scenes that are completely unnecessary, but Scorsese feels obligated to match his protagonist’s insatiable greed. The film’s gargantuan runtime is also beyond reproach because it’s an exceedingly long movie about excess. If we’re going to hurt others to get what we want, we don’t want to look them in the eye. We don’t see the poor people Jordan rips off because he doesn’t care.
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Someone as shallow and self-centered as Jordan can’t be bothered to see all the people he’s hurting, and wealth has cut him off from anyone outside the 1% even though he comes from humble origins. Granted, cutting off the outside world is part of the point.
He’s the ultimate frat boy, and while his antics may be self-destructive, outlandish, and venal, they’re hermetic. However, despite being amoral, Jordan is rarely dangerous. It’s the desire to be a gangster but with less violence, more drugs, and no code. Belfort shares a similar life goal when he tells us early in The Wolf of Wall Street that he’s always wanted to be wealthy. Jordan happily brags to the audience about his nefarious ways, and we see him relish the exploits of his company, fucking and fighting with his trophy wife Naomi ( Margot Robbie), fending off an FBI investigation led by Agent Patrick Denham ( Kyle Chandler), and endlessly partying with Donnie Azoff ( Jonah Hill) and other Stratton-Oakmont acolytes.Įarly in Scorsese’s 1990 magnum opus Goodfellas, Henry Hill ( Ray Liotta) says “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” It’s a line that implies not only a desire to be wealthy, but to possess a mixture of respect, camaraderie, belonging, and violent power. Through his firm Statton-Oakmont, Belfort encourages a culture of rancid behavior where employees burn off steam by screwing cheap hookers in the conference room and tossing dwarves like lawn darts. In 1987, Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) begins his ascent from earnest stockbroker to a ravenous, craven, drug-addled white-collar criminal taking in almost one million dollars a week. But by the time the film is finished spinning through an excessive tale of excess, it’s too dizzy to make a cogent and worthwhile point. It’s purposely bloated, lumbering, hyperactive, distracted, and combines these usually negative qualities into comic gold with the help of Leonardo DiCaprio’s painfully funny performance. Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, takes the attitude of these films, pushes them into overdrive, crashes through a wall, gets out of the car, and then runs naked and screaming through the streets.
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Spring Breakers, The Bling Ring, and American Hustle have shown us varying degrees of grotesque but amusing indulgence in reckless ambition and callous disregard for the consequences. 2013 has seen a collection of films that feel like a response to the economic fallout from 2008, and the greed, excess, and delusions that fueled the catastrophic downfall.