Martin Scorcese has been making films since 1964 and is regarded as a Hollywood legend who makes hard-hitting films with lot of visual effects and verbiage. He forged bonds of creative trust with actors like Robert de Neiro and now Leonardo DiCaprio. "The Wolf of Wall Street" is Martin's latest film with Dicaprio starring the latter as Jordan Belfort, the broker who made a killing in penny stocks and created a business empire that lured hundreds of aspirants from all walks of life - bakers, mechanics and retirees. Martin Scorcese's last film "Hugo" carried his stamp but the present film based on the same book written by Belfort is a throwback to the anarchist days of the 80s where the market cap to GDP ratio was below 1 and Reagan's years made it a national rage to own common stocks and brokers were divinely bestowed with tips.
Martin shows the Wall Street culture that is still the meanest in the world - with characters who sizzle in sex, lies, drugs and greed. Here is Belford who is indoctrinated into a dizzy culture of dope and sex while ripping off clients on over-churned stock portfolios. Belford tastes blood early and becomes the pet broker in his office. He figures out a new way to put hands in the wallets of customers: recommend penny stocks which are not traded regularly on the bourses which pays 50 per cent commissions - something similar to our trading in illiquid physical shares or micro cap stocks in low-trading category. Belfort fires up the opportunity and creates his own firm in due course which attract hordes of brokers in Wall Street firms. But Belford understands the selling cycle from telecalling to pitch to close. That makes him take on folks from unconventional backgrounds and mould them to deliver, this includes guys like Jonah Hill who crack the code of fast-pitching and over-trading in dud stocks.
The Success trap shows some sick humor with explicit sex scenes, substance abuse and scant regard to the person who pays all of the broker's bills - the poor customer. Belfort breaks up with his wife, seduces another man's wife who attends his lavish party, continues his tireless induction of hundreds of colleagues to plunder stocks, rip off clients, and that is when the chickens come home to roost - when FBI is tipped off in a trading scandal about a stock they made a killing. Belfort becomes a wreck because of this sex-and-drug addiction; he gets into deeper mess of money-laundering, offer of bribe to a FBI officer and stuff like that which pulls him down. Yet, he walks scot-free in the end and becomes a sales trainer.
That makes "The Wolf of Wall Street" one of Martin's most irresponsible films that neither reflects the changing times nor give a new message to Wall Street admirers: Make merry at work, milk your customers, make love and get high on drugs. It is unlikely that the film despite an awe-inspiring performance by Dicaprio will every be counted as a classic in the elite company of films like "Wall Street", "Wall Street Returns", "Boiler Room" or "In Pursuit of Happyness'. It is just shown as a law of the jungle without a message of uprighteousness or taking a high moral ground. It shows Martin's lack of familiarity or research on a topic well brought in the book. Martin presented the story but could have given the class of Oliver Stone to deliver a better script with loose ends upended. Regulators in US are no longer pro-cyclical and have moved on - you can't trade without compliance watching you as big brother, you cannot talk about your customer disparagingly because the "Access to Review" rule works against you - if you refer to a customer as an idiot or a dodo in your peer convesations, it can be a recordable fact of evidence used against you. Most of the dialogues are those spoken in the inner recesses of day-traders' minds and contain the word "fuck" too many times in each sentence. The slang is atrocious and contain fond unmentionables. It looks as if Martin wanted the audience to take a call on all those who thrive on the culture of preying on other people's money . Martin also dwelt too much on the same routine of pepping up colleagues to pitch products resulting in a film that close to 3 hours. Had he not chosen the film to the novel, Martin would have scored new highs with an in-your-face narration on the different dimensions of the brokers and advisors. It does glamorise the profession but leaves wrong messages for everybody who watches the film, strictly for adults. Despite Dicaprio's exuberance and portrayal and Martin's pacy narration, the film will be disowned by the brokers and Wall Street representatives because it is unreal today and the industry shown in the film has changed . Families should avoid it because what is shown is as good as "porn scum", one of the pet expressions used by the hero.
My rating: 2 out of 5
