The economy has been the underlying theme of many of the films
released in the last 3 years, and this year being no exception. But whereas “The Hunger Games” and “Killing them
Softly” focused on the struggle of the lower class and the inertia of
the economic climb, moves of this topic in 2013, such as “The Bling Ring”,
“Spring Breakers”, “The Great Gatsby”
and “American Hustle”, are bleak satires
of the bloated excesses of the one percent and the material obsessions of
American culture. Martin Scorsese’s
latest, “The Wolf of Wall Street”—bizarrely released on Christmas weekend—is perhaps
the most salty and biting of this crop; an unrelenting, tenacious carnival of queasy
decadence and mind boggling affluenza.
After losing
his first fortune in the big Wall Street crash of 1987, young stockbroker Jordan
Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) builds his way back up through an unregulated
investment scam, tricking small start-up companies to sell stock to him for half
the profits they receive. Later, when Belfort learns he can take this same
business model to catch the bigger fish, his life, his friend, his wives, and
his firm begins to quickly spin out of control.
Not
unlike Marty’s “Goodfellas” back in 1991, this film follows the rise and fall
of an overconfident and mostly unlikable main character as he narrates the
events of his life in a barely confessional, but mostly self-congratulatory, tone.
The friends and colleagues who surround
Belfort, such as his sloppy yes-man Donny Azoff (played with spot-on comic
sleaze by Jonah Hill), his mentor Mark Hannah (A Mathew McConaughey cameo, that
almost steals the entire movie in one scene), and even his playboy-model second
wife Naomi Lapaglia (played by newcomer Margot Robbie, who’s tough enough to
keep up with all of the barking dogs in this movie) not only encourage his
extreme behavior but they count on it to maintain their own status. And when I say extreme behavior, sex, drugs
and rock and roll is a reductive bumper-sticker in comparison to the day to day
risk-taking these executives indulge in, as they engage in company-funded
sex-parties on airplanes and consume fistfuls of illegal pills before and after
meetings.
Barely
avoiding an NC-17 rating, Scorsese and company have been heavily scrutinized for
portraying this lifestyle as all party and no hang-over and for possibly giving
Belfort more money for his actions by adapting his own autobiography. While I
can’t speak for Belfort’s royalties, I can say that if this had been a ninety
minute blaze of orgiastic crunking, I could see the cocaine ecstasy that this
film displays as being problematic. However, this is a three hour film, and
after the first few hours of scandalous fun, the darkly-comedic beats begin to ramp
up faster and faster until it becomes a numbing montage of capitalistic
gluttony. What was once funny, dangerous, and sexy in the first half of the
film becomes depressing, disgusting, and irredeemable by the second half, and I
don’t consider that as a point of criticism. That, I believe, is exactly the
point.
The half-way
mark is where audiences will likely take their position on the film. While some
will find the epic build of this to be a monumental critique of privileged
narcissism—a kind of Citizen Kane by way Gordon Gekko on bath-salts—others will
not be as charmed by Scorsese’s persistent energy and may simply feel like they
are sloshing in a bog of exploitation.
If this were a straightforward morality tale
the characters would learn something valuable and karma would be the ultimate
victor, but history isn’t fair and justice isn’t thorough. Instead, you’re supposed to watch the actions
of these men with conflicting sense of curious envy and outraged condemnation,
and in that sense, “The Wolf of Wall Street” boldly puts its money where its
mouth is.
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Jan-2014
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