During last year’s Hollywood Reporter director’s roundtable
interviews, Quentin Tarantino intimated that he might soon give up making
movies, stemming from a belief that filmmaking is essentially for the young,
and his uncertainty that he can maintain the quality of his work into old
age. The second part of those concerns
may or may not be true, but Martin Scorsese – now in his early 70s - has
delivered a timely example to blow away the ‘young man’s game’ bit.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is not the work of your average septuagenarian movie director – but then, it’s not the work of an average director full stop. An adaptation of the memoir of American stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who in the 1990s willfully, gleefully defrauded his clients out of more than $100 million, it positively fizzes with an energy that most filmmakers would struggle to sustain for ninety minutes. Scorsese manages it for twice that time, and he makes it seem effortless; it’s like the most outrageous, debauched and frequently hilarious party you’ve ever been to, and it’s taking place on a smooth-riding bullet train.
White collar crime might seem like new territory for Scorsese, but it doesn’t take long for familiar themes and traits to become evident – Belfort, who became a celebrity on the back of a Forbes article meant to expose him as a villain, fits right into the pantheon of Scorsese antiheroes-who-end-up-as-celebrities, alongside Travis Bickle, Rupert Pupkin and (fellow real-life mess) Jake LaMotta.
Shift focus and you can also see THE WOLF OF WALL STREET very soon being remembered as the final (perhaps?) volume in Scorsese’s unofficial “How We Did It: Great Organised Crimes Of The 20th Century, As Narrated By The Perpetrators” trilogy [don’t think that’ll fit on the box set – Ed], alongside GOODFELLAS and CASINO - not necessarily for its superficial stylistic similarities, but because it’s that good. Essentially another perfect sequel, it’s everything you enjoyed about those previous works, but with more than enough variance of subject and tone to warrant another story in this framework.
It excels on every level, but particular praise is deserved for screenwriter Terence Winter (THE SOPRANOS, BOARDWALK EMPIRE), who makes a virtue of never over-explaining Belfort’s almost unfathomable sociopathic messiah complex, and longstanding master editor Thelma Schoonmaker for always keeping the aforementioned bullet train ride fully comprehensible.
In front of the camera, despite an incredible ensemble - Jonah Hill and Rob Reiner in showier and very, very funny roles, Margot Robbie and Kyle Chandler in less flashy (no pun intended, Miss Robbie) but no less solid support, plus the pleasant surprises of Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley and a legendary ten minutes from Matthew McConaughey – but this is Leonardo Di Caprio’s show from start to finish. He’s working to full reach, and he’s never been better - especially a riotous scene involving antique Quaaludes.
One question I had going into the film was “why go after this relatively small fish, when you could go after the big story?” After three riveting hours and with the knowledge that Scorsese and Schoonmaker had to wrestle THE WOLF OF WALL STREET down to that running time, the answer became pretty obvious: this examination of just one of these greedy bastards is a far better fit for a feature film; the sheer amount of amoral financial fuckery going on at Goldman Sachs, Lehmann Brothers, Bear Stearns et al. is a long-running HBO series in waiting. Hopefully it will be every bit as funny, angering and mesmerising as this, potentially the best film of 2014.