“THE WOLF OF WALL STREET” My rating: C+ (Opens wide on Dec. 25)
179 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Is “The Wolf of Wall Street” the result of some sort of show-biz wager?
It’s as if Martin Scorsese (arguably America’s greatest living filmmaker) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Scorsese’s latter-day DeNiro) accepted a challenge to make a three-hour movie that would entice us to laugh along with despicable characters – just because they thought they had the special juice to pull it off.
And there are moments when they come close.
“Wolf” is based on the memoir by Jordan Belfort, a poster boy for ‘90s stock market shenanigans, who made millions selling his customers worthless securities and ended up going to prison for his misdeeds.
Now I’m the sort of fellow who tries to find the essential humanity in just about everyone, but Belfort is the financial equivalent of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. He’s arrogant and greedy and virtually without conscience – capitalism at its most corrupt.
And DiCaprio and Scorsese have to sweat like stevedores to make him a palatable companion for 180 minutes.
This is a speedball of a movie that maniacally tears along from one scene of misbehavior to the next, hardly ever slowing down to contemplate just what message we’re to take away. Presumably Scorsese disapproves of Belfort and what he represents … but the film feels just the opposite. It seems a monumental celebration of greed and excess.
Butler's Cinema Scene 