This is based on a book telling the true story of a man who saw an opportunity to con his way to a $1 million a week job fleecing would-be investors and capitalising on that one human vice that most permeates society. Greed. Initially thumped by a financial crisis, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is reduced to joining a ramshackle school of amateur brokers selling penny stocks and hoping that enough of those will make enough commission to live on. Quickly, he realises the truth to that old expression about every penny making a pound, though - or in this case, a buck. He quickly galvanises this team into an affective trading force that is soon seemingly making money from thin air. Give their business an old-school name to establish some market credibility and the sky’s the limit? For years it was, as this man and his friends creamed the system at will, making a fortune to spend on drugs, hookers, houses, cars, yachts - you name it. These guys knew how to play the game and how to act with impunity whilst the Feds flapped around at their ankles trying to prove that any of this was unlawful. Of course, the more they got the more they wanted. The more they got away with, the more invulnerable they felt - and fairly soon their tentacles were spreading across Europe too. Sooner or later, their chickens must come home to roost, or should that be roast? Or will they? What’s clear from Scorsese’s rather savage and occasionally pithy indictment of profiteering capitalism is that these men don’t think they are ever going to be caught or, indeed, that they are doing anything wrong. Just like the early boxers who fought their way out of poverty, these guys started off wanting for things as basic as an home, or an education for their kids, or healthcare for their parents. What harm in improving yourself? It’s not real money, so it can’t impact on real people? What struck me about this, after about half an hour, is that once we got the point about these selfish and hedonistic folks living a life of profligate excess, the characterisations don’t really go anywhere. We watch them descend into a selfish, pill-induced, maelstrom, but once we have heard the first rousing, expletive-laden, speech from Belfort extolling the virtues of their aspirations, it didn’t need to continually reinforce the odiousness of what I was watching. We get it. He’s a venal and obnoxious individual blessed with the same thing that Hitler and Mussolini were - charisma. He could sell sand in the desert by fist-pumping the air and smiling at his all too eager and gullible employees and investors alike who wanted to make a quick dollar without asking too many questions. That is the aspect of this that I would have found more interesting to explore. Why are they so successful? Who are the people of all incomes, shapes and sizes, who are investing $25 and expect to get it back ten fold without risk or without penalty? We never see any of these something-for-nothing merchants who are every bit as greedy as the Belforts of this world. If these boys could milk things so effectively why the hell can’t governments make money like this for everyone’s benefit? These guys are no Nobel economics laureates, just psyched-up cheats and losers. Despite being pretty unlikeable, there is something potently appreciable about DiCaprio’s delivery of his foul-mouthed character here. Success goes to his head, his wife loves the trappings without enquiring too deeply and they live in a bubble that is as likely to illicit envy as it is disgust from folks who might loathe the idea, but who might not behave so very differently if presented with the same opportunity. This film disappointingly focuses on the shameful profligacy and the low hanging fruit of these people, and it’s a compelling enough watch for the most part, but as an evaluation of cause and effect I though it under-delivered and took an easy route of sensationalism. Good film, though.
