The Wolf of Wall Street

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

For years I wondered how tall Leonardo DiCaprio is. He seems really short in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Titanic. Imagine my surprise when I found out he’s a full six feet tall… and boyish. In fact his boyishness became a problem for me as he moved into mature roles.  In The Aviator and J. Edgar, I felt like I was watching a high school production of something like Valley of the Dolls.  In The Wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio is not only the perfect age for the part; he also looks like someone who has burnt the candle at both ends and giving himself over to every hedonistic whim.  This is not your tweener’s My-Heart-Will-Go-On Leo.

The film benefits from the authority of Martin Scorsese, likely our greatest living American film director. Not only can this guy make great films, he makes great films for people who love movies – count himself among them with his encyclopedic knowledge of film. These characters, with their shallow personalities and vulgar situations, beg you to hate them, just as in other Scorsese films like Raging Bull and Good Fellas.

 Leonardo DiCaprio is up to his (eye) balls in earthly pleasures in The Wolf of Wall Street.

My bourgeois moral code didn’t want to like these characters as much as Scorsese wanted me to like them. In the end, though, I think I was wrong. Scorsese doesn’t want me to approve of these people. I think he simply wants me to understand what their motivations are and think about whether I could resist temptation as well. I also enjoyed seeing a master of the art stretch his formidable, story-telling wings.

The movie is about depraved people so you’re going to see a lot of filth. I rushed out of the theater as the lights were going up so I wouldn’t have to experience the glare of other audience members because I’d brought my 14 year old nephew. Twenty years ago this film would have gotten an NC17 rating and thirty years ago, an “X.”  Now I’ve warned you. But if you don’t care about that, you’ll have little to complain about this film. 

Scorsese is on top of every detail and his visual story telling keeps things from ever getting dull in the two and a half plus hours he takes to tell the story. By the way, did I mention it’s about shady stock brokers?

This is the kind of movie you purchase the DVD Special Edition and watch once or twice a year for the rest of your life, if you’re a true movie fan. And for that, the Maestro demands that I give it four out of four Wilders. This is certainly the kind of movie he would make were he with us today.

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This week’s Overlooked Film of Significance: Catch Me If You Can sealed the deal for me as far as considering DiCaprio’s acting talent. It’s also Spielberg’s third or fourth best film and that’s saying something. If you can take two hours of Tom Hanks’s horrible New England accent, you’ll enjoy every minute.  Especially fantastic are all of Christopher Walken’s scenes and the prayer scene with Martin Sheen.