This was the fifth baby of the DiCaprio-Scorcese team and as usual, a strong contender for the Best Picture category of all those Award shows. I was very much disappointed when I didn’t get the chance to watch it when it opened the week before last — I had errands to run for the Baler trip — and knowing the Philippine malls’ penchant for removing good, quality movies from their lists, I knew that I had to catch it before it got cut. (I mean, hello, they’re still showing movies from the Metro Manila Film Fest for goodness’ sake, and January’s almost over.)

I’ve been a big fan of Martin Scorcese ever since I saw Casino when I was a kid. Yes, no Disney for me when I was eight, this was the type I saw — my childhood, go figure. I like him as a director because I feel that he’s a true artist, one that needs a muse to create his great works. Before he had Robert De Niro (Goodfellas, Casino, Taxi Driver) and now he has DiCaprio (is it the “D” in the surnames?). As a film maker I think he’s a very brave one; he’s not afraid to kill of beloved characters and you as an audience know and feel that he’s not just doing it for the shock factor value.

ANYWAY. /End Martin Scorecese fangirl-ing. Here’s my round up of The Wolf of Wall Street.

Please note that there may be spoilers; read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The movie’s based on the autobiographical book of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio – Titanic, Shutter Island), a wall street stockbroker who rose to fame in the 90’s by “playing the field a little differently”. He sets up his own firm Stratton Oakmont with neighbor-turned-into-close-friend Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill – Superbad, 21 Jumpstreet) and recruits his merry band of weed dealers (Henry Zebrowski, Brian Sacca, Kenneth Choi and P.J. Byrne) as his pilot team of stock brokers because after all, “these guys can sell anything”. They start off by selling penny stocks and, upon the urging of his then wife, decide to “steal from the rich instead of the poor” by going after the billion dollar companies instead of the poor retirees.

Belfort gets hooked on the high life (pun intended) and just couldn’t get enough of everything – women, booze, quaaludes – that eventually he trickles over to stock manipulation. It doesn’t take long before the FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler – Early Edition) gets on his case and pins him down. The movie depicts Belfort struggling to decide between ratting out his family at Stratton Oakmoant to the cops and saving his own hide.

THE GOOD:

1. The humor. I was a few minutes late into the film and when I entered the cinema and I stopped dead in my tracks because I heard the audience laughing. Laughing. In a Martin Scorecese film. I mean, I knew that the guy can do humor and there will always be chuckles when watching his movies but this was just blatant comedy right here. I guess there’s no other way to treat material as ridiculous as this? It really is either go big or go home. There was this one particularly memorable line when, aboard a boat that’s about to sink (sing it with me: near, far, wherever you are -) Belfort gabs Donnie in a mad panic and asks him to go down and grab his quaaludes, stating “I will not die sober”.

2. The hodge-podge style of story telling. Just like Goodfellas, the movie is run by an internal narration by the lead character. Unlike Goodfellas though, here Belfort oftentimes breaks the fourth wall and stares right into the camera to explain what’s happening. There was even one time when another character’s interjected her own thoughts during Belfort’s inner monologues.

3. The soundtrack. As is the Scorecese style, this movie has one wicked soundtrack. Come on, this is the guy who played “Atlantis” by Donnovan while a guy is being beaten to death in the Goodfellas. The man knows how to highlight an emotion from a scene with what seems to be the most ridiculous of choices but somehow it works. If anything you focus more on what’s happening on screen while a known pop tune plays in your head.

3. Leonardo DiCaprio. I haven’t seen Django, Unchained yet but I heard from somewhere that it was also a comedy (sort of; as comedic as Quentin Tarantino gets anyway). Is this a thing now for Leo? Is he taking a break from choosing heavy roles for ridiculous ones? I say go for it; it works and I have new found respect for him because of that scene where he was drooling and crawling to get to his car.

4. The women of the film – Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother) and Margot Robbie (Pan Am) play the women in Belfort’s life – the legal wife and the mistress, respectively. I always find it refreshing to see (relatively unknown) people from television show act out on the big screen. Of course there was some sort of nudity and the film’s love story is between Donnie and Jordan, but you know.

THE BAD:

1. Jonah Hill’s false teeth. They were annoying as fuck. I know that it helps with the characterization and all, but come on.

2. The film sort of glosses over the other multiple characters in the film, which I understand can’t be helped because it’s based on a true story and all, but it’s still a shame. These characters seemed interesting enough that I was left wondering what happened to them at the end. Did they all go to jail?

THE UGLY:

1. That they tried to make Belfort into a man with a conscience. Sorry, but I don’t buy it. They made that Belfort struggled to decide whether to turn in his friends or not which makes for good cinema and all but I don’t think that it’s quite believable in real life. I don’t think a man as morally depraved as Jordan Belfort would even think twice before ratting out his friends. If it means saving his own ass, he’ll probably do it in a heartbeat.

All in all it was a very good movie and even though I’ve only one other contender for the Best Picture award (Gravity), I think this is good enough to win. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a Scorecese fangirl. This movie was just the right blend of ridiculous and real that you don’t even notice that its run time is three hours. It’s also a treat seeing huge ass stars like John Favreau and Matthew MConaughey in small-ish roles than normal and not ham it up.

THE VERDICT: 9/10. See it if only to count how many times the F word was dropped.

*All images are from the film’s IMDB page.