Review of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) by Timestar — 22 Jan 2014

3 Hours long and still feels shorter than American Hustle.

Seriously though, this may be the best paced film of 2013, but that isn't even its strongest point - Martin Scorsese has made a career out of protagonists who by all rational assessment should be antagonists. Jordan Belfort is a despicable, sad, awful human being, but why does he hold our attention for so long? This piece works so well because it uses farce to outline a character who lives so far on the edge he constantly runs the risk of dropping off it.

Let's talk for a second about the trope of the "Unreliable Narrator". Jordan Belfort is as unreliable as they come - he's a fast talking, swindling, addictive loser who finds something he's good at and makes the world reward him for it. His perspective, and Leonardo DiCaprio's fearless performance, make such a piece of human scum worth watching for so long, because we start to see what is wrong with the "American Dream".

The American Dream, held up as a lofty ideal by tales long past, reaches it's most farcically perverse in Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street. Every excess in this film, including Belfort's lack of comeuppance for his misdeeds, serves to highlight what is wrong with the economic world of America. And Scorsese knows there is entertainment value here too, and he exploits that so the film retains a manic, hilarious pace throughout, never loosing steam. This type of black comedy is much more rewarding than 90% of all comedies produced today because it finds the ludicrous in what is wrong with the country, so we can mock the people who truly deserve to be knocked off their high horses - the morally bankrupt brokers who think they are Rock Stars. Here's lookin' at you, Mr. Belfort.