“Greed is Good”, those were the exact words (now immortalized) which Michael Douglas taught a young Charlie Sheen in Oliver Stone‘s Wall Street. Ironically, Wall Street was released just before the October, 1987 US stock market crash. Incidentally, Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street starts on that very same Black Monday when Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Jordan Belfort starts his first day as a stock broker, only to lose his job the same day.
This is an era where the world economy is still in the throes of a recession with Occupy Wall Street chants of “We are the 99%” protesting the “greed & corruption” that is allegedly all-pervasive in the financial services sector.
So what was Martin Scorsese thinking when he made this movie? If Gordon Gekko in Wall Street romanticized greed, the Wolf has INSTITUTIONALIZED the same. Sadly Scorsese’s latest venture lacks any depth at all. It is just 2 hours and 59 mins of a shameless display of greed, lust , debauchery of the highest order glorified to dizzying heights. In fact, in the course of watching it, I lost count of the number of times the f-word was used (Scarface™ has been put to shame here seriously). They must be gunning for the world record on this count. DiCaprio is magnificent as the millionaire fraudster as he virtually sleepwalks through the role as he has done so often in his previous avatars as The Great Gatsby or as Frank Abagnale in Steven Spielberg‘s Catch Me If You Can.
Mr. Scorsese, you have given us such cinematic gems like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Departed, so we expect no less. The Wolf of Wall Street is supremely entertaining no doubt but the soul of the movie is sorely missing. Unfortunately, it is obnoxious, bordering on the level of unimaginable and shallow to the core. No attempt has been made to explore the psyche of those guilty of gross financial misdemeanours (read scams), filling their own coffers by duping the public of their hard-earned money by manipulating the system. Or what prompts someone as eminent as Mckinsey ex-director Rajat Gupta to fall prey to Insider Trading or for that matter for young bright investment bankers of Goldman Sachs to bet against the products it was selling to the customers. No serious effort has been mounted to delve into these grey areas. The black humour, the satire .. are strewn here and there but sadly overshadowed by the almost visceral treatment by the director. Ultimately what could have been a masterpiece, turns out to be just another heady cocktail of women, weed and of-course moolah.
For me, the only cinematic highlight of the film was the lunch conversation between Belfort and his charismatic boss Mark Hanna ( cameo played brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey of The Lincoln Lawyer & Mud The Movie fame) on the first day of his job where the protagonist is initiated into this world of white collar criminals with the hypnotic “Money Chant” while pounding his chest. Or to a little extent the last scene, where an out-of-prison Belfort teaches an eager audience (with the hope of earning the millions stamped across their impressionable faces) HOW to SELL at a seminar.
In Wall Street, Bud Fox clears his conscience by turning against his mentor Gordon Gekko, knowing fully well that he would be prosecuted for the illicit trades. Sadly there isn’t an iota of remorse anywhere to be found in the Wolf, which is an intoxicating but terribly hollow tale woven around the real-life story of a millionaire scamster.
I don’t want to play the Moral Brigade here. The Wolf of Wall Street is an exhilarating roller-coaster ride but lacking the cinematic soul that has been the hallmark of Scorsese’s past ventures.
The eyes had a feast but the mind is starved ..
Calcutta Chromosome 