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Wolf of Wall Street REVIEW THREAD

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Jordan Belfort's book was skewed and awful to begin with. The guy wasn't likable, he left a lot of unanswered questions, and I'm curious how Scorsese/DiCaprio fill in the blanks (did they consult with the Forbes editors who broke the story in the 90s?). I read the movie addresses a lot of the 'what' but little of the 'how'. My biggest concern was this movie being a page by page interpretation of the memoir because if thats the case, then that leaves this movie being another layer of dramatization for the sake of entertainment (nothing wrong with that, per se, just not what I am looking for). I think a more fascinating aspect of this story is how these men (Belfort and Porush) continue to be wealthy.
The idea that the movie is less about "how" and more about "what" is driven home pretty hard. As in, Leo straight up addresses the audience this way. The movie is more about the lives they lived vs how they got rich
 
Well, I understand why Scorsese chose a relatively unknown actress for the Naomi character. 'Cause I doubt if you're getting ScarJo or Jennifer Lawrence (picking two random 'hot' names) to do the nude scenes and other scenes ole' Margot did.
 
Saw this yesterday. Fantastic movie all around and my favourite of 2013. I really hope Leo picks that oscar up. And man, was it also hilarious.

BENI-FUCKING-HANA?!!!!!

hahaha best part.

EDIT: Also, the audience was great for my cinema. Huge round of applause as soon as credits started rolling.

Also, as one who prefers 2hr+ movies the 3hour run-time was perfectly fine and I would not want it any shorter. Every minute was fantastic for me.
 
Saw it a little while ago.

I honestly don't know how I feel. This is certainly one of Scorsese's weaker movies of the last two decades or so. It was absolutely hilarious at times, but fuck it didn't need to be this long. So many scenes felt stretched out. A lot of stuff feels repetitive. It was just "Look at how excessive and out of control these guys are," long after the audience gathered that point. I can't remember a lot of really out there scenes just because THERE WERE SO FUCKING MANY. On the way home I suddenly recalled, "Oh yeah, there was a scene where a
guy got held over a railing after a gay orgy
." There's just so much stuff that I can't remember it.

I feel like this should have been 2 hours. 2.5 tops.
 
Was kind of surprised at all the CGI in this movie. The helicopter and boat scenes looked a little bit rough. There was also some really obvious greenscreen that was pretty distracting.

Overall, I liked it but it ran way too long and all of the debauchery kind of blurred together after a certain point. It's basically Casino turned up to 11, which was basically Goodfellas turned up to 11. And so on. I would have also liked some more exposition scenes of what laws they broke that caused them to have to launder money in the first place. Was the whole thing just ripping people off on junk stocks, or what?
 
Fantastic movie.

Important question:
What did the FBI agent see on the bus in the second to final scene? I know he looked at the people across from him but I'm not sure what it was symbolizing?
 
It was okay. It didn't feel like three hours but I can only recall having fun during the Jonah Hill scene. Naked beautiful women barely registers after a while.
 
Fantastic movie.

Important question:
What did the FBI agent see on the bus in the second to final scene? I know he looked at the people across from him but I'm not sure what it was symbolizing?
I assumed that was a nod to the earlier comment by DiCaprio about having to take the subway to work. Basically, the FBI agent was reflecting on the fact that he had just nailed one of the biggest white collar criminals, yet he still had to take the subway to work. A commentary on how the rewards were out of sync with both men's accomplishments.
 
Fantastic movie.

Important question:
What did the FBI agent see on the bus in the second to final scene? I know he looked at the people across from him but I'm not sure what it was symbolizing?

Earlier in the movie when he
met with Jordan on the yacht, they discussed how the agent had originally wanted to be a broker. Jordan derided him for choosing to be an FBI agent instead, where he worked his ass off and got little to show for it, over Jordan who just partied hard and raked in millions. At the end, the agent was viewing the desolate bus and it hit home how much less he had than Jordan despite the altruistic life he decided on.

I don't know if it was meant to show if he regretted his decision, or to demonstrate how fucked up our society is that guys like Jordan get it all. Either way it was pretty bleak.
 
Saw it a little while ago.

I honestly don't know how I feel. This is certainly one of Scorsese's weaker movies of the last two decades or so. It was absolutely hilarious at times, but fuck it didn't need to be this long. So many scenes felt stretched out. A lot of stuff feels repetitive. It was just "Look at how excessive and out of control these guys are," long after the audience gathered that point. I can't remember a lot of really out there scenes just because THERE WERE SO FUCKING MANY. On the way home I suddenly recalled, "Oh yeah, there was a scene where a
guy got held over a railing after a gay orgy
." There's just so much stuff that I can't remember it.

I feel like this should have been 2 hours. 2.5 tops.

I agree with a lot of this. The movie was nuts though. Pretty entertaining, but a lot could of and should have been cut out. I haven't seen a film with this excessive cussing, swearing, drug use, in a while. It was excessive, but didn't really add too much to the film apart from a few hilarious situations, which further drove the plot.
 
I think Martin was on coke making this film, i also liked leo's performance in jango more then this film. I think at a certain point he just becomes an amalgamation of all his other characters.

Was martin channeling howard stern?
 
Fantastic movie.

Important question:
What did the FBI agent see on the bus in the second to final scene? I know he looked at the people across from him but I'm not sure what it was symbolizing?

It to me was like a bitter pill he got his guy..... But so what? He is still riding the train and nobody even cares he did his job and sent the bad guy to jail. It was at most maybe a moment of doubt that maybe he should of took the fun coupons.....

Also there were moments in the movie when I almost mistook Leo for Ray Liotta. It was some great acting in this film by him at least, he was never likable but the character kept your attention for the most part in a long as hell Movie.
 
I saw it back on the 26th and I absolutely loved it like most have said here. My only problem I had with the movie was the scene
with the old drugs kicking in for both Jonah and Leo. Leo wasn't functional AT ALL for the better half of 20 minutes + and once Jonah saw that Leo had gotten the call from his lawyer took like 2 more of the pills and I can't understand for the life of me how Jonah is still standing let alone able to make a phone call to Switzerland. You can make the argument for tolerance sake but I'd say they're easily on par with each other.
Thoroughly enjoyable all that aside. Never once felt like 3 hours in length.
 
Jordan Belfort's book was skewed and awful to begin with. The guy wasn't likable, he left a lot of unanswered questions, and I'm curious how Scorsese/DiCaprio fill in the blanks (did they consult with the Forbes editors who broke the story in the 90s?). I read the movie addresses a lot of the 'what' but little of the 'how'. My biggest concern was this movie being a page by page interpretation of the memoir because if thats the case, then that leaves this movie being another layer of dramatization for the sake of entertainment (nothing wrong with that, per se, just not what I am looking for). I think a more fascinating aspect of this story is how these men (Belfort and Porush) continue to be wealthy.

You can find out more about Belfort, the how, and what does now through his web site and various videos online on youtube and via torrents. He pretty much does speaking and consulting for corporate audiences. He also teaches his selling system directly and via an information product. Its called straight line persuasion.

In regards to the "how" he talks about that in some of his youtube videos and other content as well as the course mentioned above. He spent quite a bit of time with others analyzing what he did to try and distill a formula out of it that could be replicated and used by others in a positive way. Not the selling of bullshit investments but the ability to sell and persuade people so strongly (his employees, clients & people in general)
 
Really liked it. In many parts I laughed harder than during any other comedy I've seen in years.

Some dad left with his 11 year old kid HALFWAY through the movie. Like, the kids already seen some shit, he might as well just stay now. How he didn't leave directly after the first scene baffles me
 
Really liked it. In many parts I laughed harder than during any other comedy I've seen in years.

Some dad left with his 11 year old kid HALFWAY through the movie. Like, the kids already seen some shit, he might as well just stay now. How he didn't leave directly after the first scene baffles me

Why did he bring his 11 year old kid in the first place? Over here, movie was visibly marked as 18+.
 
normally I wouldn't care about seeing a sex scene with my parents watching the same film, but some of the stuff in this movie... I'm glad I didn't take my parents on christmas to see this
KuGsj.gif


great movie. needed to be 3 hours long. no cuts, no trim, it all works. there wasn't a moment in this entire deal where it dragged.
 
It's very strange to me the people that are angry at this film with what they think it portrays. This movie did not glamorize or make Jordan look like a good person.

I think these people are even further proving the point that this is in fact a hell of a film if it is conveying this kind of feeling out of people. Films, and art in general, don't have to be so easily palatable and should convey a feeling in the viewer. It's a hell of a thing for Martin Scorcese to be able to get this type of response from a film this late in his career and something he has been doing the whole time.

Great film from a great filmmaker.
 
It's very strange to me the people that are angry at this film with what they think it portrays. This movie did not glamorize or make Jordan look like a good person.

To be fair, he doesn't cross the Moral Event Horizon until the last half of hour or so of the movie.
 
I was just checking out IMDB yesterday and was wondering who is this actress (never seen her before) and why is she trending so high. Well, after seeing that leg pic above I decided to google Marbot Robbie and now I understand why her trending rank has gone up so fast..

She also has a movie with Will Smith coming out...seems she's the new "It Girl"....
 
It's baffling to me that people really seriously don't understand that this film is a satire and not glorifying Belfort at all.

It's like thinking Goodfellas somehow makes Henry Hill a good person.
 
Anyone know why Belfort got away with telling his friend he was wired? FBI guy said "you're going to jail" but wasn't that part of the cooperation agreement anyway? They just let him get away with it as long as he helped convict the other members of the firm?
 
Anyone know why Belfort got away with telling his friend he was wired? FBI guy said "you're going to jail" but wasn't that part of the cooperation agreement anyway? They just let him get away with it as long as he helped convict the other members of the firm?

He didn't. The agent showed that they found the note, giving them firm evidence of Jordan's wrongdoings and proving that he wasn't willing to cooperate with the authorities. He went to prison. But like Jordan said, he was rich and in America everything's for sale. So he got sent to four years in a "country club" prison.
 
Well.

Saw it earlier, and was super disappointed. I'd heard great things and was looking forward to myself, but definitely not the biggest Leo fan so I wasn't overhyped. The humor felt crude and as if they were trying to force it, I think I laughed for real like one time? While the first 40 mins-1 hour felt pretty aimless to me.

It got better as it went on, but still wasn't the amazing movie I had hoped. Doubt this'll be Oscar material, especially not for Leo as main actor, and I doubt it'll be for anything else, considering everyone that wasn't Leo, including Jonah Hill, had such minor parts.

Felt more like a 3 hour peek into the life of a douchier version of Leo.

edit; best part of the 3 hours was seeing the blonde girls boobs. I guess it was worth the 10 bucks.
 
Just got back from watching this.

What an insane movie. Felt so many parallels to Goodfellas in terms of the energy that was conveyed.

But it was too long IMO. By the time it hit 150 minutes, I was ready for them to wrap it up.

I really really hope that Leo gets the recognition he deserves for this, as he was in the movie for literally every second and didn't take his foot off the pedal at any point.
 
I feel like "The Yellow Note" was an easy way to tie everything back up. You'd think he'd destroy such an incriminating piece of evidence.

I'll never watch Popeye the same way again.
 
I feel like "The Yellow Note" was an easy way to tie everything back up. You'd think he'd destroy such an incriminating piece of evidence.

I'll never watch Popeye the same way again.

that scene had elements of Danny Boyle's The Beach in it.
 
Saw it a couple nights ago.

Loved it.

Two minutes into the movie, the older couple right next to me got up. Lady was like "I'm done, lets go."

First time I've ever seen anyone leave a movie due to obscenity.
 
It's baffling to me that people really seriously don't understand that this film is a satire and not glorifying Belfort at all.

It's like thinking Goodfellas somehow makes Henry Hill a good person.

Tony Montana is a hero to a certain segment of America. People in general don't get subtle. If you put somebody as the protagonist of a film, they're going to get the benefit of a doubt.
 
Saw it last night and I'm speechless in a great way. This was American Psycho without the killing and Fear and Loathing in New York. Hilarious adults only sickening satire/case study of greed.

Loved the moments when he's about the discuss numbers and decides not to.
 
Saw it Friday night and left pretty disappointed. It's not a bad movie, but it definitely has pacing and editing issues, and I feel like it's one of Scorcese's weaker films.

Like a few others mentioned, so many scenes just went on too long. I remember especially thinking this during the phone scene where Leo and Jonah can't speak coherently. Any dramatic tension is lost due to how long it goes on, and what could have been a really strong comedic beat
the Popeye part
is diminished because at that point, I was just ready for the movie to go on. This wasn't the only scene like this, and I can't help but feel like the film was trying too hard to be funny, when the laugh had already been earned, but the editor didn't know when to stop.

I also found the soundtrack really disappointing. I love Scorcese soundtracks and this one felt all over the place. In Goodfellas all that music felt perfectly placed, where as with this film, the music just felt so arbitrary and there was no time that I thought, this is the perfect song for this scene.

The visuals weren't very noteworthy either. I hated the slow motion scene when Jonah falls behind Leo; it just looked bad and I really can't remember that many scenes where I was impressed by any camera work.

And finally, I found the ending scenes a bit strange in comparison with the rest of the film.
The FBI agent looking at all the poor and melancholy people on the subway and then the shot across the desperate faces looking to learn how to sell from Leo when he gets out of jail
didn't really fit well with the rest of the film. Even though the FBI mentioned it on the yacht, it seemed like all of a sudden the film was trying too hard to send a message, whereas the rest of the film was pretty much devoted to Leo's character and what money can do.
 
It's easy to see why. Just an absolutely stunning woman, in every way possible. She acted well too which makes me wonder what took hollywood so long to find her.

I haven't seen the movie yet (doesn't open here until next week), but I was shocked to learn it wasn't Jaime Pressly.

Looks exactly like her at first glance.
 
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