The Wolf of Wall Street
Truth of the matter is, I have no idea how to review this movie so I came up with this:
The Wolf Of Wall Street - Imagine Alec Baldwin's cameo in Glengarry Glen Ross repeatedly having weird and graphic sex with the drug scenes from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but with none of the danger and none of the meaning, extended over 3 hours and you're about half way there.
The film is about an utterly repellent, narcissistic, smug, unrepentant, soulless and swaggering young stock broker turned snake oil huckster, the sadly, very real, Jordan Belfort played by a superb Leonardo DiCaprio, who, after one martini lunch with a hilarious, cameoing, Matthew McConaughey, starts down the road of swindling people out of their money, taking massive amounts of drugs, sleeping with everything in a skirt, buying all the big ticket items you can imagine, throwing midgets at dartboards and a whole host of other taboo-breaking, debauched things guaranteed to shock some, amuse some and bore some. I was mostly amused, sometimes bored and the only shocking thing was that it was Scorsese doing it. We knew he could do violence but all of a sudden there is an early DePalma or later Kubrick level of tits and ass flying about.
Belfort starts by swindling regular folk out of thousands at a penny stock trader on Long Island and then hits on the big idea to trade penny stock to the 1% richest people because, it's all fake anyway, it's just about moving your clients money around and, most importantly, the commission is so much higher. I suppose we're meant to like him for this, the fact he's only picking on the wealthy I mean. Is this why Scorsese and DiCaprio made this? I have no idea. My natural instinct is to assume they are not in favour of this behaviour but I don't know. It is never dwelled upon WHO the clients are or what happens to them, the 1% thing is mentioned in passing briefly and never really brought up again. The ins and outs, intricacies, repercussions and downside to any of this is never shown. We never even see a failed sales call, a plumber loosing their home through bad investing or even a CEO of a fortune 500 asking "wait what about that stock I bought?". We barely even spend any time with any of the characters who may or may not disapprove with this lifestyle and to cap it off there's even a hint at the end that the FBI guy who's after these crooks, Kyle Chandler as Agent Patrick Denham, also a bit of a full-of-himself-dick, feels like it was all for nothing and humanity's not worth saving anyhow. The one character who is definitely decent, Belfort's first wife, gets dumped early and even made out to be a whining cow for not 'getting-it' like his new girlfriend does, the, admittedly, stunning Margot Robbie.
No other perspective! In a 3hr movie! It's just 3hrs of this Belfort guy doing stuff and more or less getting away with it. Seriously, that's it. Lots of drugs, excessive nudity and sex of all kinds and an extravagant lifestyle. All played for laughs, funny laughs admittedly and the script is great but there's no substance to it, whatsoever. Which wouldn't be so bad if this guy was fictitious or some of my ticket money wasn't going to this slimy, lying jackass but it is and I feel like my trusted film friends, Marty and Leo, made me culpable in the continued, wealthy existence of this prick.
Not only that but the film routinely tells you over and over again that I, or we, the audience secretly want to be like him and that we SHOULD be like him, maybe not in the debauchery exactly, but in the getting and being rich part.
I, personally, want to be successful at something and if money comes, great, if it doesn't, as long as I can eat, have a roof over my head and treat myself occasionally to some blu-rays, I'm pretty happy. Success is what I strive for and am ambitious for, not just the mindless accumulation of wealth but then, I am funny that way.
Some, in fact, many reviews have suggested that this film is really a biting attack on people like Belfort but that kind of misses the fact that
A) at no point in the film is Belfort really attacked. There's no real tragedy that befalls him that he can't happily and smugly buy his way out of, well no tragedy that is looked at with any depth for more than 2 seconds or that he shows any signs of being really bothered by, that is
and
B) Belfort wrote the book this is based on and happily appears in it, introducing and praising the Hollywood version of himself, on stage at a public speaking gig, no less.
Now I am not a prude or a killjoy, I am not against sex, drugs or midget tossing, neither am I an economist, I don't pretend to understand Wall Street and I don't think Wall Street pretends to understand itself. I assume it's mostly loud mouth folks 'winging it' with each other and patting themselves on the back A LOT, regardless of whom their actions hurt, but I don't know for sure. I choose, however, in my life, not to spend time with people like that because I find ego, swagger, braggadocio, smugness and a sickening lust for wealth without skill or substance, completely and utterly sickening. Spending 3hrs with these guys then was just aggravating.
I have just watched some video of Scorsese, DiCaprio, Terence Winter and Jonah Hill and firstly they seem to think the film is critical of Belfort's actions back then and Wall Street now and they also seem to think that Belfort was punished for his crime. The trouble with that is, he's not punished and even says so in the script. Secondly the film laughs with and at Belfort but never really criticises or judges him, unless you as an audience member choose to. In fact it implies, even with its last shot, that we, the audience, should be enthralled by him. DiCaprio called the book bravely embarrassing and said it was a modern day Caligula story but Caligula was assassinated, no such luck with Belfort unfortunately. Terence Winter, the screenwriter, seems to believe this all really happened when clearly Belfort made vast sections of it up, much in the way idiotic teenagers brag to each other about sexual conquests that never took place.
So here's the dilemma I'm in:
The film, technically, is very good. It's very funny, the script is excellent, it's performed brilliantly by all involved, it's directed with the usual Scorsese flair and, although, it has no business being 3hrs long, those 3hrs don't drag. However I don't like it's politics or purpose (intentional or unintentional), I don't like the story or the person that's the focus of the story and I don't like the assumptions about me or the audience that the film makes and never sufficiently rebukes.
Can you like a movie based on skill of production alone?
It is truly an eye-opening and fantastic central performance by Dicaprio, I mean seriously unhinged and a joy to watch with some impressive and bravado speeches. His greatest scene though is when, partially incapacitated by quaaludes, he has to make it out of the country club and into his car. It's the most phenomenal physical comedy I have seen this year. Also Jonah Hill is surprising, wonderful and genuinely funny in his role. All the actors are great, every single one, with not a weak link anywhere. They are helped, of course, by a first rate script, when it comes to dialogue. When it comes to a point to be made or a reason this story is being told in the first place, then it's terrible but in terms of jokes, discussions and weird characters, the script is spot on. As for Scorsese, I have heard this, in more than one review, called his best or second best film ever. Admittedly one of the people who wrote that, a lady from The Los Angeles Times no less, believed The Departed was his best film, so take it all with a pinch of salt but this is far from his best work. This wasn't even as good as Shutter Island. It looks beautiful and everything but this needed a little more Casino and a little less Eyes Wide Shut.
I am going to wrestle with this film a long time. There's a lot of fun to be had and it's definitely entertaining but it's like a masterful Scorsese montage that never begins or ends or tells you anything at all.
I also think that if it was a fiction it would be fine but it's, apparently, mostly true.
Someone on another blog put it perfectly when they said
"would Anchorman still be as funny if Ron Burgundy was a real person and the movie based on a book he wrote himself?" - Vince Mancini, Filmdrunk
Just to clarify, though, I don't not like Jordan Belfort or his colleagues because of some misguided, moral correctness screaming "oh the depravity", some working class jealousy or hate of the rich and I also didn't understand the scam well enough to hate what they were doing to people on a social level and was, actually, told in the film not to worry about it and just understand that they made lots of money! I just hate him because he's a smug, unrepentant prick who wrote a self-aggrandising book about how crazy and great he is and how he beat the system because he had gobs of money. Honesty and humility go a long way and Jordan's ego did capsize the movie for me.
It was like when Piers Morgan took a hard line on gun control, I agreed with him completely but it's Piers Morgan, even when he's right you want to take a paddle to the fucker.
6 out of 10
Love and Other Drugs - 27th November 2010
It starts as a perfectly ok, throw-away, sort-of-comedy about a guy, played by werewolf faced, bland-as toast, recently buffed up for an action movie based on a video-game, Jake Gyllenhaal who has the gift of the gab, sells people junk they don't need, be it stereos or pharmaceuticals and sleeps with every implausibly attractive woman he comes across in a variety of forehead slappingly predictable and obvious sex scenes.
Then he meets Anne Hathaway's dungaree wearing fantasy woman who seemingly spends all day not working very hard at a crappy little cafe or lounging about in hardly any clothing arranging her, very trendy, polaroid pictures into hipster art in a loft apartment that would make Van Gogh audibly orgasm. She of course, calls him on his crap in a sassy and flirtatious way before explaining to him that all she wants is what he wants, a series of meaningless sexual conquests. Cue a never ending string of fairly graphically naked sex scenes which have little or nothing to do with much except blotting out the apparent oh-so-tragic pain of being them, which, in Gyllenhaal's case means making hundreds of thousands of dollars being number one sales man of, surely-sells-itself, boner pill Viagra and in Hathaway's case having to swan about doing absolutely nothing all day apart from repeatedly showing your breasts and fiddling with a photo.
So far so meh! and not even an over active, man please just loose weight, supporting role from Mr.Comic Relief himself, Oliver Platt could really elevate it much above, weirdly sexually graphic but not very distracting fluff.
Then somewhere along the line we realise oh no! Hathaway's got a disease! Hathaway has Parkinson's! She doesn't want to get close to anyone because she may, one day, need help from that person and oooh noooo she doesn't want to be a burden to anyone because she's so good and volunteers to go with old people up to Canada to get cheap meds and ahhhh she's been down this road with previous men, including, of course, Gyllenhaal's arch pharmaceutical rep rival and whinge, moan, whinge, moan, cry, moan... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
BANG! wake up!
Sorry about that but basically after a few more sex scenes, a break up, another handful of snore inducing sex scenes (including an obligatory one through fogged up, rain dripped glass), Hathaway doing her best shaky hands, I have Parkinson's really! routine and a montage of Gyllenhaal not wanting to accept her fate and so desperately trying to find a cure, followed by another smattering of self-absorbed self destruction with some moping, a ridiculous, I have never told anyone this before because I used to hide my depth behind my abundant shallowness, declaration of love which is followed by another break up and then some more make-up sex, all the time accompanied or interrupted by a not-very-funny sidekick turn by someone who is meant to be Gyllenhaal's brother but looks like a curly haired, fatter and less funny Jack Black, they finally decide, after Jake rides up next to Anne's bus in his porsche, stops the bus, gets on and declares more love while the old folks comically egg her on to just go for it, to be in love and stay together. The End..... and BREATHE!
As if my run on sentence just then didn't just prove that I couldn't get on board with this turgid, tedious, predictable arse belch of a film enough, then let me explain:
On the surface this attempts to be a strictly adult take (look there's nudity and swearing!) on the tale of the selfish philanderer who finds the woman of his dreams and despite her medical condition becomes the man he truly is by falling in love with her and pledging to take care of her because really, medical condition or not, we all need taking care of, even Jake 'oh look I am naked again, this work out regime wasn't wasted then' Gyllenhaal. Ladle in, what should've been, a decent bit of satire about the drug companies and health care in America and, especially timing wise, after the big health care debacle in the States, you'd have a hit rom-com/drama on your hands that will appeal to all women from 25 to 85.
The trouble is it is none of those things and less.
Much like Gyllenhaal's character apparently finds depth by the end of the film (why because he stops selling drugs and decides to go back to what his hugely over privileged family want him to do and go to medical school while also lazing about on Anne Hathaway??), so the film was meant to have become deep I suppose but much as, I suspect, three years down the line, ol' Jake, bored with Hathaway's enormous gob and 17 rows of perfect white gnashers, will scarper back to loose women and the thrill of the sell, so this film's supposed point never really holds any truth and it all ends up being a fairly mundane re-tread of every 'I love someone with a disease' movie.
We learn nothing, nothing changes and we never really grow to care about these perfect people and their perfect hair. All that happens is we are secretly pelted with weak cliches and flimsy scenes strung together by some repetitive nudity all the while supposedly thinking we are watching something that, at least, attempts something a little adult beyond the usually sexually sterile Hollywood Rom-Com but we're really not, it has all the depth and substance of a child's cardboard paddling pool. I, for one, just sat there mostly thinking 'man, Jake Gyllenhaal looks like Eddie Munster, the werewolf child off the TV'
It was also another completely wasted opportunity because a film that could've been a 'Thank You for Smoking' for the Pharmaceutical industry ended up being a film that 13 year olds will watch certain scenes from to masturbate to when their parents are out buying groceries or, god forbid, working.
Also, they seem to have wasted the opportunity to do a good and poignant satire, simply so they could use the registered names of Pfizer and Viagra but by doing this and setting it in 96 to, I guess, give it some sort of historical reality, they were then unable to really go ahead a bite the hand that was, no doubt behind the scenes, feeding the whole thing anyway. Just another annoying trick played on us by the people who brought you restless leg syndrome and anti-depressent medication that can actually increase your chances of wanting to top yourself, i.e. our friends at the pharma companies.
For once the adage, if there is one, that 'tits maketh a movie' does not ring true. I never thought I would sit watching a film willing beyond all hope that Anne Hathaway would put her clothes back on and do something interesting! but congratulations Hollywood you made that very movie! Gyllenhaal is usually a bit better than this and I was really disappointed.
In the end though, obviously, it wasn't my choice of movie and so I was pleasantly pleased, when we got up out of our seats and headed to the diner, to find my wife and her friend were of a similar opinion as to the below averageness of the movie and I would have no problem voicing my opinion about what rubbish I thought it all was. They did, however, want Anne Hathaway's hair and my wife probably wished I looked more like Jake Gyllenhaal and less like a flabby, Lon Chaney style, beardy werewolf, still, can't have everything!
4 out of 10 foam filled cups of what appears to be mocha, cappa, frappa, flappychino but turns out to be just hot air and some dribbly milk.
Points from The Wife 4 out of 10 also as, she too, with a little hindsight had worked out just how this film really lacks substance of any kind.