“Three hours? Three hours?!”
Mrs Mager was a bit shocked when she discovered the running time of black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. It was a tad longer than the typical 90 minute’ers she’s used to but previous Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio collaborations have form for this. And if I’m being completely honest, the time literally flew.
The picture charts the real-life rise and fall of ambitious New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) and for the entire duration we are treated to a visual whirlwind of nineties excess as Belfort and his mates bring new meaning to the phrase ‘work hard play hard’.
Dwarves, candles, monkeys and even goldfish all feature among the gang’s high-jinx in a drug-fuelled world of sex and crooked deals. Belfort even pays one of his employees a cool $10,000 to shave her head provided she spends the money on a boob job. Rum but fascinating.
Our own Joanna Lumley makes a decent cameo appearance as one of Belfort’s in-laws but the best supporting actor in the whole production is Jonah Hill who lines up alongside DiCaprio as odd sidekick Donnie Azoff. Younger readers will recognize Hill from right-of-passage teen comedy Superbad.
The aspiring actor’s desire to work with legend Scorsese saw him pocket just $60,000 while DiCaprio walked away with a cool $10million. On the strength of this Oscar-nomination performance though it was probably the best career move he ever made.
As it’s all based on a real life story the film inevitably turns serious when the FBI decides to wage war on Belfort’s crooked empire and attempts to bring him down. The game of cat and mouse that ensues is superb.
Scorsese’s triumph in my eyes is in engaging the viewer with a world of extremely shallow unlikable characters. He certainly has a knack of making you root for the bad guy. So if there’s one film you see this year then make a date with The Wolf. You’ll be howling.
