Unless I am just tired or completely fed up with a movie or the prospect of doing anymore research than I have to (it's been known to happen), I will actually take some time to look for a picture that either sums up what I like most about the film or one that suggests the main focus, idea or themes of the film. In this case, Jordan Belfort's (Leo DiCaprio) face pretty much perfectly sums up how I felt about Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. I was entertained and left the movie feeling like it was a well crafted piece of cinema, but the feeling wasn't overwhelming. It was more of a, "Hmmm, alright," and slight head nod of recognition. Because, for a movie with such insane action, balls-to-the-wall performances, and utter debauchery, The Wolf of Wall Street just isn't that engaging or enjoyable.
Based on the real-life Jordan Belfort's memoir of the same name, The Wolf of Wall Street is about a New York stockbroker who, after passing his Series 7 Exam and earning his stockbroker's license, immediately loses his job when his Wall Street firm goes under after the "Black Monday" stock market crash of '87. Out of work, he finds a job selling penny stocks out of a Long Island boiler room and eventually, through some not exactly legal tactics, forms his own firm which he dubs Stratton Oakmont. From there we see Jordan and his ragtag group of friends-turned-associates as they float through the early '90s, engaging in various illicit acts (to put it mildly) while getting filthy rich through securities fraud and other sorts of corruption.
Now, I knew all of this going into TWoWS and was excited at the prospect of seeing Scorsese delve back into the seedy underworld of crime that he so expertly depicted in films like Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995). And while TWoWS has the same beautiful camera work, funny and (mostly) insightful voice over, perfect needle drops and brilliant performances as those previous films, it is lacking the key component that made Goodfellas and Casino so compelling and made Goodfellas arguably the greatest mob film ever made: The Wolf of Wall Street has no moral center.
Unlike Henry Hill or Sam Rothstein, neither Jordan Belfort nor Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) nor any of their friends, family or acquaintances have any semblance of a conscience whatsoever. Not even Kyle Chandler who plays an FBI agent whose job it is to investigate and ultimately take down Belfort's organization has a twisted sense of self, fluctuating between taking perverse joy in destroying the lives of these uber-rich sons of bitches and seemingly regretting his own life choices while wondering what life could have been like if he had stuck to his own Wall Street dreams. While I'm sure some will argue this is the point of the movie and that we're not supposed to connect with anyone in this film because they are completely evil human beings ruled by greed that have completely corrupted the American Dream, I would argue this is nonsense. Yes, all of that maybe true, but if your film has no moral center for the audience to latch onto, not only can they not connect and invest in anything that is happening in the film, the stakes are rendered totally moot and everything in the film is sapped of all resonance and significance.
I don't care about anything that happens in The Wolf of Wall Street because I don't care about anyone in The Wolf of Wall Street. I don't care about the misadventures of Jordan and his Band of Merry Pranksters. I just don't care! You care about what happens to Henry Hill and you care about what happens to Sam Rothstein because they are relatable. You want them to get out, you want them to stop doing all this horrible stuff they're doing and most of all you want them to survive. Jordan Belfort and everyone in The Wolf of Wall Street are horrible people. They're horrible to each other and to themselves and to humanity. And the most that can happen to them is that they go to jail for a few years in a cushy, low-security prison. I get that this is supposed to be the point. But without a little nuance in character development and storytelling, all you're left with is a three hour film where we see the same shady dealings and drug- and sex-fueled benders over and over and over again. For a film that is so filthy (barely escaping an NC-17 and taking the record for most f-words in a narrative film), The Wolf of Wall Street just doesn't have any bite.
6.5 out of 10
I thought these two films would make an appropriate double feature because, to my mind, they are noticeably similar. Critics have already been calling David O. Russell's latest film, American Hustle, "the best Scorsese film that Scorsese never made" and it's not hard to see why. Both are based on real-life events, both feature breathtaking camera work, pervasive voice over and brilliant performances, and both are concerned, in one form or another, with the corruption of the American Dream. However, when you put American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street side by side, it quickly becomes clear which is the better film. Despite its flaws, American Hustle is everything that The Wolf of Wall Street wants to be. It's big, it's brash and it's uproariously funny. But at its core, it is a terrific character study, an exploration on the dissatisfaction a person feels for his or her life and the lengths to which he or she will go in search of a better one.
Like TWoWS, American Hustle is loosely based (even cheekily declaring "Some of this actually happened" at the beginning of the film) on the FBI ABSCAM operation of the late '70s and early '80s. During the film, two con artists (Irving Rosenfeld, played by Christian Bale, and Sydney Prosser, played by Amy Adams) are caught and forced by an FBI Agent (Richie DiMaso, played by Bradley Cooper) to set up an elaborate sting operation on corrupt politicians, including Carmine Polito, the mayor of Camden, New Jersey (played by Jeremy Renner).
However, though there are many unlikable or flat out menacing people in American Hustle, including the curly haired, prestige-hungry, oftentimes manic Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro in a role as a Floridian mobster/casino operator named Victor Tellegio that somehow manages to make him scary again, Bale's Irving Rosenfeld acts as the moral center that TWoWS is severely lacking. Like Jordan Belfort, Rosenfeld was the son of two lower-middle class parents in New York City. Belfort's parents were accountants, Rosenfeld's dad owned a glass business. Both of them saw how society beat down the poor while the rich got richer and both worked their asses off to make something more of themselves. Where Jordan Belfort took to the stock market, eventually engaging in securities fraud, Irving Rosenfeld set his sights on legitimate dry-cleaning chains and a slightly less legitimate business selling forged paintings. But as Belfort unapologetically devolved into a world of cocaine, Quaaludes and hookers, Rosenfeld is forced into helping nail down political bigwigs in order to save himself and the love of his life, Sydney (under the disguise of Lady Edith Greensly), from going to jail. While Belfort takes pleasure, one might even say glee, in screwing over his middle to lower class clientele, Rosenfeld recognizes that his chosen marks, primarily Renner's Carmine Polito, actually want the best for their state. Yes, they are engaging in some illegal activities, but the benefit that could arise from those activities greatly outweigh the small technicality of the methods being illegal. Plus, unlike Belfort and his cronies, Polito is doing this out of his genuine love for his city and state rather than as an act of self indulgent hedonism.
This all adds up to characters that feel like actual human beings. They're screwed up individuals who do stupid shit, but who also have feelings and consciences, who realize there are consequences for their actions and who just want to build a better life for themselves. It makes for some incredible performances and highly compelling relationships - paramount of these being the one between Irving and Sydney. Irving may be overweight, he was have an "elaborate" comb-over, but there's no denying his charisma. And he loves Sydney. He offers her the respect she has never received but continuously needed throughout her life. Are they "good" people? No. Irving is married (to Jennifer Lawrence who plays her character's clear mental instability well, but who does often struggle to decide what she wants to do and goes in and out of her accent at will.) and Sydney plays her British counterpart more than she's actually herself and they both constantly lie and cheat desperate people at the end of their ropes. But you feel their choices and the weight of their situations and it makes you wonder what you would do. That's the nuance. That's what makes a movie, and characters, engaging. And you fall in love with Irving and Sydney. You want them to be together, you want to see what they get into and how they get each other out of it.
The problem is, you invest so much into their relationship (really all the relationships in the film) that you don't really care about anything else. The ABSCAM stings, which one would assume are a key point to the story, are sidelined more and more as the movie progresses. The scenes of explaining the situations and planning ultimately devolve into a montage of Irving, Sydney and Richie Dimaso repeating the same act with each of the targeted politicians that is over as quick as it begins. For what it's worth, David O. Russell makes it pretty clear early on that the ABSCAM stuff is simply background to what he really cares about - that being the relationships between the characters. However, as the film reaches its third act, O. Russell confusingly put most of the weight on the resolution on how what ultimately happens to ABSCAM and to Irving, Sydney and Richie. And for the most part it feels like a complete anticlimax. Yet, while that initially feels upsetting, when you look back at the movie O. Russell sets up, it makes perfect sense.
Throughout the film, there is a hilarious running joke involving Bradley Cooper as DiMaso and his boss played by the perpetually befuddled (and increasingly wonderful) Louis C.K. where the latter continuously attempts to tell the former a story about when Louis C.K.'s character and his brother went fishing as children. Cooper repeatedly interrupts, believing he knows the ending and trying to beat C.K. to the moral punch. But he's always wrong. The big moral lesson he expects from his boss never turns out to be what he expects. In the end, we never get to hear the ending and its left in way that hints that it might just be a completely banal tale - one of those "you had to be there" instances that we all have and can't wait to share with everyone we know for no particular reason other than to share. It's an intriguing story initially, but one that eventually gives way to the much more interesting and hilarious interactions outside of it. Just like American Hustle the film. The ABSCAM story is a largely unknown story (I had never heard of it until I read about the film) but is undeniably interesting. However, when David O. Russell begins to tell it, it quickly gives way to what is truly interesting and entertaining - that being the characters' interactions around and outside of the ABSCAM operation itself. And though the ending might feel like an anticlimax, it's actually the realization of what the film has done all along.
Granted, it's not perfect (for all the wonderful things in American Hustle, it is still arguably overstuffed and has some really odd choices throughout). But, adding to their already long list of similarities, neither of these incredibly strange films are. In a sense, both films are about the business of selling something that isn't really what it appears to be - whether it's stocks or a completely different personality. And if the number one rule of business is "Always leave them wanting more," American Hustle could teach The Wolf of Wall Street a few tricks.
8.5 out of 10
