The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), R, 4 stars

The stockbrokers worshipping Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) like a god.

Wall Street. The clients, the adrenaline, the stocks, the money, the power, and the decadence. The former three pertains to the man's job, but the latter three pertains what any stockbroker wants in order to have the freedom to do whatever they want with the client's money. As Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) would say, "The name of the game is: move the money from your client's pocket into your pocket." We basically spend three hours seeing all of these Wall-Street scumbags steal the clients' money into their own pockets and spend it on booze, drugs, women, and other insane things in more insane activities. I have witnessed here is a great movie that I would not watch repetitively.

The movie starts with Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) blowing cocaine onto a hooker's butt and he and his brokers throwing a little person onto a board with a dollar sign in the center. It's already an adult rated R movie and I'll speculate on that later in the review. But, it's one of the many, many examples as to why Belfort is enjoying the lavish lifestyle of Wall Street, however, we have to start from the beginning. Jordan begins working at Wall Street at the age of 22 while married to Teresa Petrillo (Cristin Milioti). He meets Hanna, played brilliantly by McConaughey in a few scenes, who have drinks and lunch and gives him advice on how to become a good stockbroker. His advice and reason: Jerk off and he is a stockbroker mainly because of prostitutes and drugs. Unfortunately, Jordan gets his broker's license the same day as Black Monday where the stock, including in Hanna's firm, plummets and he loses his job.

Belfort works at a small establishment at Investor Center, which deals in penny stocks and after a few months, he's on a hot streak. He meets and befriends Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) at a cafe, a salesman who lives in the same apartment complex as Jordan, and starts opening a firm together recruiting some friends and employees from Investor Center called Stratton Oakmont. The business of Stratton Oakmont is hot and is getting around from Forbes to the FBI, specifically Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler). They bring in Jordan's parents as his accountants to handle his finances, Max and Leah (Rob Reiner and Christine Ebersole).

Later, at a party, Jordan meets Naomi LaPaglia (Margot Robbie) where he is instantly attracted to her. Therefore, he takes Naomi to a dinner one night where after the meal, they go back to her apartment for some tea and have sex. The affair continues with Naomi before Teresa catches Jordan sniffing cocaine on her breasts in the limo and becomes hysterical. In the end, Jordan files for divorce and marries Naomi and as time passes, they also have a daughter named Skylar.

The downfall sort of begins when the FBI sends the company a subpoena to request Jordan's wedding video tape. Jordan learns from Bo Dietl (as himself) that the FBI is targeting everybody in his inner circle. In the best scene of the movie, Jordan invites Denham and his partner Agent Hughes (Ted Griffin) onto the Naomi. Belfort basically recounts the story of hiring an employee of his by bribing him because he needed money for his mother's triple bypass surgery and basically laughing it off. It is in the middle of a cat-and-mouse game now as the agents leave and Belfort is angrily insulted, mockingly throwing money at them. Jordan goes crazy by storing money into offshore accounts, snorting cocaine and Quaaludes, and having sex. He's getting so obsessive-compulsive with his lifestyle.

Jordan and Donnie (Jonah Hill) basically wrestling each other while high on Quaaludes.

The movie is great but it will definitely turn off viewers with all the insane activities going on regarding drugs, sex, and nudity. Even, the fighting and bickering between Jordan and Naomi near the end of the movie is disturbing. The drugs and sex going on in Jordan Belfort's life and in Stratton Oakmont is basically a portrait of the hedonistic and crazy lifestyle in Wall Street that is filled with fraternity brothers that are just discontented jerks. We are not supposed to like them as they represent the disgusting figures of Wall Street and how people are not disciplined with their morals. I mean, there are scenes, especially the comically inspired scene between Jordan and Donnie high on Quaaludes (scene of the year), that are just funny but we were not suppose to laugh at it. I mean, duh, it is a black comedy with much drama.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives his most ambitious performance of his career. I cannot even imagine in a few scenes how he dealt with his physicality in his drugged-up scenes and his sex scenes. He went beyond the limit and took risks and you got to applaud him for his efforts of him playing a smart-ass, funny and immoral person wanting so much more. Jonah Hill is fantastic as his partner and is actually dead-on with DiCaprio in some scenes. Margot Robbie was more interesting than I thought because based on the trailers, she's basically portraying a sexy object, but she had a little more depth in her character. Rob Reiner was hilarious as the father, Jean Dujardin as the sleazy Swiss banker was good, Kyle Chandler was dynamic going head to head with DiCaprio, Cristin Milioti had depth, and I wished there were more scenes with McConaughey. Again, he was just fantastic and he reminded us why he is one of the most prolific actors in recent years.

I am a Martin Scorsese fan and he did make a great movie but it does seem like a polarizing movie in the beginning. But, I don't know if over time, people will look at this movie and embrace it. I mean, look at other polarizing movies: Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange, even Casino (which I liked, but not loved). They were not hits in the beginning, but over time, they are now considered great and important movies. Scorsese has created his riskiest and funniest movie telling the tale of who Jordan Belfort really was. This is the opposite of Goodfellas. Goodfellas is about gangsters portrayed as scum doing really cruel activities but you like them. Wolf, however, is about stockbrokers taking clients' money and celebrating and using it for pleasure and you do not like them.

Scorsese has made the same type of movie of greed and consumption but with different aspects and angles of the characters. This movie shows the modern debauchery of Wall Street that is perceptive and shows the ridicule notions of banality that nobody would want to enter. I have no idea how this movie got an R to be frank because there are scenes that really pushed the envelope for an NC-17. However, the movie is irreverent and repetitive, but to an important extent, it is how we can view the really dark side of Wall Street and think very carefully of whether to enter into the financial world.

****