The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

 

In 1987, Jordan Belfort lands a job as a Wall Street stockbroker. He is a quick convert to the sex-and-drug-fuelled stockbroker culture and the cynical ethos that a broker's only goal is to make money for himself. When then he loses his job following Black Monday, the largest one-day stock market drop in history, which you would think might bring an end to that.

You'd think wrong.  Belfort and takes a job at a boiler room brokerage firm on Long Island that specializes in penny stocks, and rapidly realises that this end of the market is more or less completely unregulated.  Through deeply unethical business practices, he's soon raked in enough cash to set up his own brokerage firm, giving it the 'respectable sounding' name of Stratton Oakmont.

Now his own boss, Belfort is able to expand the size and scope of his unethical trading practices.  Even an expose by Forbes magazine doesn't dent his success: on the contrary, it brings a host of greedy, equally unethical brokers to his door, looking for work.

For most of the 1990s, Belfort's wild ride of drugs, sex and illegal deals spins on in ever more extravagant manner.  Of course, that also means it is getting more and more out of control, and eventually - eventually - the authorities are sure to come knocking.

Jordan Belfort is a real person, and The Wolf of Wall Street is based on real events.  It's anchored by a charismatic performance from Leonardo di Caprio and a whole lot of nudity.  This latter is a big factor in what I consider the film's key flaw: it's glamourising of Belford and his lifestyle.  In the real world, Belfort's criminal activities destroyed people's lives.  The movie very much treats this as 'suckers deserve what they get'.  The very real costs of Belfort's life of fancy cars and sex with models are not depicted, and there's no effort to engage with - or even acknowledge - the misogynistic underpinnings of that lifestyle.  Women in Belfort's life were just another commodity to be traded, used and discarded.

This is a technically well-made film, but I wish it didn't feel so much like it thinks Belfort is a cool guy, sticking it to the man.