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Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

By Christine Petralia

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures

December 30, 2013
 
Who doesn’t love a film filled with sex, drugs, scandal, deceit, money and Leonardo DiCaprio? What’s even better is the whole story is true! And the guy who Leo plays actually wrote a book about his life, which was turned into the film! Not bad for a swindling con artist, who cheated on his wife and probably shouldn’t even be alive right now with all the drugs he was addicted to.
 
DiCaprio plays a Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker from Long Island with dreams of making lots and lots of money in 1987. He lands a job at a prestigious firm on Wall Street with a boss (Matthew McConaughey) who recommends he adapt a lifestyle of drugs and prostitutes to succeed. After studying and passing the Series 7 Exam, he gets his brokers’ license, only to learn that on his first day as a full-fledged broker he loses his job when the firm fails on Black Monday.
 
Down and out on his luck Belfort considers a career change when his wife finds a job at boiler room, which deals in penny stocks. Realizing he’s pretty good at conning people with the penny stocks, he starts his own firm on Long Island, Stratton Oakmont, with a friend Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill). The firm soon becomes a billion-dollar company. And Belfort, remembering the wise words of his first boss, starts cheating on his wife and getting addicted to all sorts of drugs. After divorcing his wife, he moves a model into his mansion, gets re-married and starts a family, all while keeping up with his life of sex, drugs and lies. He starts money laundering to keep up with his lifestyle and hires a sleazy lawyer to cover his tracks.
 
Soon, though, and as expected, the FBI gets wind of Belfort and starts sniffing around. Ever the con artist, Belfort gets involved in offshore accounts and finds a way to move his money to a Swiss bank. Of course, enlisting the help of his low-life friends and his wife’s British aunt. But even that isn’t enough to stop the FBI. Soon, the Swiss bank manager is arrested on U.S. on unrelated charges, and he gives up Belfort. Despite all attempts to save his ass though, he does land himself behind bars for a few years. During the investigation, he works out a deal to rat out his partners to cut off time from his sentence. He does, surprisingly, get sober and clean before heading to prison, which turns out to be a ‘club fed’ situation, as he uses his money to save himself, yet again.
 
After getting out of prison, Belfort, with another divorce under his belt, turns to a life of motivational speaking.
 
There is so much in this film. Some of the scenes are just ridiculous, you almost forget that they most likely happened. DiCaprio is fantastic, even as a young 22-year-old Belfort. He nails the Long Island accent, as do most of the actors in the film. Hill is great as a sleazy side-kick. Kyle Chandler as the FBI investigator is also fantastic. The scene on the boat with Beflort trying to ‘bribe’ the investigator is great, especially when he throws the money at them. And the scene after Belfort takes really old Quaaludes, which don’t kick in for a long time is classic. I really do wonder if the real-life Belfort was as funny and dicky as DiCaprio portrays him.
 
Coming in at three hours, it’s a pretty long film. It goes pretty quick though, and most scenes I found necessary to build up the story. It definitely helped keep my interest because I didn’t know much about Belfort before seeing the film. Try and catch this one in the theater – if you can, as both times I headed to the theater, it was sold out all weekend. 

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