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Movie Advisor: The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey, Jonah Hill, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin
Duration: 179 mins
Rating: R18+
Release Date: 23 January, 2014

The New Daily says: The Wolf of Wall Street is an explosion on screen. Colourful, crude, excessive and aggressive, it overwhelms viewers with the behaviour real-life Wall Street stockbroker Jordan Belfort and his friends enjoyed, leaving them gasping for air. The highlight is Leonardo DiCaprio, who traverses the fine line between hilariously hopeless lothario and scum of the earth so well that it’s pretty hard to hate him. Honourable mention goes to DiCaprio’s physical comedy skills – he is so good at being “f***ked up” (his words, not mine) on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol that it’s easy to forget the atrocities he is committing against his body and his family. A particular scene at a country club is just as likely to elicit guffaws of laughter as it is sighs of despair.

A wordy script is brilliantly delivered by DiCaprio’s co-stars, including an infuriatingly hilarious Jonah Hill and Australian actress Margot Robbie, the only woman to bring the conniving Belfort to his knees. The plot drags towards the end as we watch a particular cycle of debauchery (from office, to boat, to house, to party) replay over again with different consequences. Scorsese could easily have cut half an hour from his three hour creation by sacrificing just one of Belfort’s sweeping pep-up speeches.

If you are prepared to leave your moral compass at the door, the film can certainly be enjoyed as an absurd, elaborate romp ending in near-disaster. Slightly more conscious members of the audience will struggle with the way the film tends to glorify a drug-fuelled, womanising lifestyle. Regardless, the colourful parade of characters and shocking re-enactments of Belfort’s real-life antics will ensure you get your movie ticket’s worth of entertainment.

The Guardian says: “This is Scorsese with fire in his belly and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Walmart Gordon Gekko cranking up the laughs – a pantomime Goodfellas.”

Entertainment Weekly says: “Pay no attention to the title: Martin Scorsese’s new shoot-the-works epic The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t about rapacious stockbrokers or shady financial shenanigans. It’s about drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.”

The Telegraph says: “Booming and flailing in the title role is Leonardo DiCaprio, whose performance here is one of the actor’s very best: a knock-out uppercut of pure anti-heroism…He is larger, louder, more monstrous than life, and the entire film swings crazily around him.”

Kids? NopeIt’s R 18+

Watch it: On DVD on a fairly large screen. So you can pause for bathroom breaks (you will need them).

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