Martin Scorsese directs the story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort. From the American dream to corporate greed, Belfort goes from penny stocks and righteousness to IPOs and a life of corruption in the late 80s. Excess success and affluence in his early twenties as founder of the brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont warranted Belfort the title “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Expect excess in all forms. From sex, drugs, money and crime – it’s all about doing everything to complete glut. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Belfort brilliantly, the rogue trader who is recklessly hedonistic with an appetite for cocaine and hookers. From a telephone salesman selling penny stocks to the founder of Stratton Oakmont. Belfort is clearly a driven, intelligent and callous individual who is impatient for power and wealth. He represents the most destructive and obnoxious side of late-20th century American capitalism.
His antics in the early 1990s helped to pave the way for the financial crisis of 2008. As his mentor, Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey), tells him, “We don’t create sh*t, we don’t build anything.” Belfort is determinedly sexist, egocentric and selfish. He organises dwarf-throwing contests to keep his staff amused. He has no empathy for any of the investors he willingly rips off. It’s all about money.
Nonetheless, as portrayed by DiCaprio, he is a very likable scoundrel. We can’t help but root for him. He speaks direct to camera, as if confiding in us. He is witty and self-deprecating. That is what makes Scorsese’s raucously enjoyable film so problematic. Its claims as satire are undermined by its obvious sympathy for its protagonist. Belfort is far more charismatic than the dogged, dour FBI agent (Kyle Chandler) on his tail.
Everything Belfort does is wrong. Committing adultery, illegal trading, money laundering, fraud, corruption and A class drug addiction – he loves the fact he can do all this and still be applauded as he walks through to makes his motivational speech to employees. The film has caused outrage amongst many – accused of glamourising his crimes, ignoring his victims and failing to satisfy the audience’s need to see justice served. He’s portrayed as some sort of hero by getting to the top by lying to absolutely everbody he knows and/or speaks to. Crime thrillers don’t normally require much risk on the audience’s part: we invest pleasure in the bad guys’ schemes and scams, secure in the knowledge that the return will, in the end, be a morally satisfying one.
The Wolf of Wall Street plays the market differently. It sells us the sleaze, and sells it hard, but it doesn’t pay out in the way we expect. The value of investments can go down as well as up. Scorsese is walking a razor-wire tightrope; attempting to glamourise without endorse, treat the audience like adults, trust that our moral sense will compensate for his characters’ lack of one but we are equally encouraged to egg him on and hope he gets away with it all and beat the system – our own moral sense is completely sold. We find Jordan’s rags-to-riches story and magnetic personality irresistible, but we also know we’re not supposed to like him, because he stole the money from vulnerable people and seems to be a sociopath with no ethical centre. How do we resolve that contradiction? We can’t, and that’s the point.
A lot of pitfalls along the way show how money is the root to all evil and destruction but does he ever really learn his lesson? Money is both a drug and a sacrament, and Belfort, the very avatar of material success, is by turns addict and preacher.
If you take the good parts of Belfort – his compelling determinism, his unbelievable persuasive techniques and his wave of intelligence – but channel it in the right, moral way, you will, indefinitely, become the next big thing in Broking. A great lesson for all junior brokers; a must-see.
