Review of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) by Chrisyaseen — 13 Jan 2014
The moral of the story is unclear and the running time is self-indulgent. There may be an underlying message of "everyone is corrupt" or the "this is America" line might be the significant moral, but overall this film has no real value.
Essentially one hour of the three hours of running time is devoted to shots of debauchery, naked women, sex, drugs, more drugs, and lavish lifestyles, plus more naked women. The plethora of "filler" content made the film seem to go on forever as I often found myself looking at my watch. Obviously, Jordan Belfort sold his story rights to this film and a lot of the debauchery actually happened so you may say "but it isn't unrealistic." And you're likely completely correct.
However, the real question may not be the realistic nature of the story, but whether a story like this deserves to be told - all at the financial benefit of the criminal. He may have said he's giving all of his profit to those who he harmed in doing all the acts this film glorifies, but the FBI says he actually has failed to give much of anything of the $1M plus he's made off of the rights alone to anyone but himself.
As for the film as a stand alone:
The characters range from unappealing to appalling. The plot is schizophrenic. The moral of the story seems to be immoral behaviour has no real consequence. The running time could have been 3 minutes and I would have benefited just as much from this film.
If you like watching a 2000s hip-hop music video staring white guys, mixed with soft-core porn for 3 hours - watch this film.
Otherwise - skip this film and find something useful to do with 3 hours of your life.
This review of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) was written by Chrisyaseen on 13 Jan 2014.
The Wolf of Wall Street has generally received very positive reviews.
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