The Wolf of Wall Street

So good is its craftsmanship and acting that its lack of meaning is forgivable

Given a choice between celebrating hedonism and morality, Martin Scorsese almost always opts for self indulgence. As a significant American filmmaker and an excellent film historian, it is striking how obsessive and compulsive so many of his protagonists are. In too many of his mid and late career films, from Goodfellas to The Wolf of Wall Street, he places violence, greed and high living centre stage, without even a sideway glance at the moral dimension of his characters and subjects.

So when he makes a movie on the memoirs of Jordon Belfort, a stock swindler who cheated thousands of investors and was convicted in the late 1990s, he gives us three hours of entertainment, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Belfort and swimming in an ocean of cocaine, quaaludes and hookers. You hear people investing their life savings on his promises on the telephone, you watch an FBI investigation closing in on his fraud, but not once in the movie do you see a scene with an investor who has lost his life savings on this scumbag’s assurances.

Scorsese’s cinematic skill is in lifestyle presentation and in the astute understanding and direction of actors. He is brilliant here, and the sequences of materialistic and hallucinogenic indulgences offer a compelling narrative in themselves. The best choreographed scene is when Belfort takes an overdose of quaaludes, a drug that, amongst other things, brings your motor skills to a virtual halt. His Ferrari is wrecked without him, the driver, even knowing it.

The thing about this movie is that so good is its craftsmanship and acting that its absence of meaning never really bothers you. This is particularly true of DiCaprio’s performance, and it is only on reflection that you realise that he has done this sort of role half a dozen times before, with only minor variations of contexts—most recently in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

This movie is inconsequential but great to watch.

Leonardo DiCaprioMartin ScorceseWall Street