I've seen some great movies recently, but I'll cover those another day, once I've let my memory help me decide which are the ones best worth highlighting.
Today I just want to complain about
The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013).
I've wanted to see this since it was released but have just not got round to it. I missed the cinema release for reasons I've long since forgotten and I don't buy new DVDs/rentals at $10/$20 unless it's a gift. What I have managed to do is go this whole time without catching a single spoiler. All I knew was that it was about a Wall Street character starring Di Caprio and made by Martin Scorsese, to which it was lauded as a worthy Oscar movie and has a blindingly good IMDB rating/reviews (currently 8.2).
Now having watched it I'm a bit flabbergasted as to what all the positivity is about. It's a thoroughly uninteresting biopic of someone who doesn't really warrant a biopic. Well, I say that, but a good movie maker can make a good biopic of anyone. Literally anyone. That isn't what we have here. What we have here is lots of swearing, drug taking and nudity padding out a short story of a salesman who got rich quick.
I would have been more interested if the movie had tried to be an insightful look into the culture of Wall Street. And this is what it promised with its opening section. But that gets dropped like a stone and the story ceases being a window into Wall Street and what we did see of Wall Street was just a couple of brokers hyperboling each other - while taking drugs.
I would have been more interested if the movie had tried to be an insightful look into the concept of wealth and how we acquire it and what the boundaries are for this activity. And this is what is promised in the next part of the movie as Di Caprio enters full used car salesman terratory. But this gets dropped like a stone and the movie ceases to be interested in the fine details of where his money comes from.
I would have been more interested if the movie was about how the FBI finally caught up with him and what the workings of the state are in relation to characters like this. And this is what is promised with the inclusion of an introduced character from the FBI. But this is dropped like a stone and the movie ceases to be interested in the on-going investigation of the Wolf.
I would have been more interested if the movie was just about the daily life of the Wolf, his likes and loves, his pains and hatreds, his general motivation and, heck, even just his viewpoint generally, which the movie does try to touch on. But this tends to form background asides to whatever the main thrust of the 'story' is.
While all the above is touched upon with various scenes, there's no specific focus on any of it. The main focus of the movie's rather unwarranted 3 hour run time is just swearing, drugs and nudity, no different to a filler episode in Game of Thrones.
Some of the drug taking scenes are warranted, but mostly it's just a Cheech and Chong movie - Cheech and Chong Take Wall Street. It's played for laughs and only laughs and there's never any indication of downers, you only ever see the highs. Even when something excruciatingly tragic happens, it's played for laughs. That's fair enough, but then why not make the whole movie in the same style? We interrupt this supposedly serious Oscar bait movie to bring you Cheech and Chong?
Some of the sex/nudity scenes are warranted, but mostly it's just titillation for the sake of titillation, as if a 14 year old was given access to the script and told to add bits that he might find 'hilarious'. There are no female characters in the movie who provide non-sexualised content. Even the domestic situations are always played out with the overhang of either sex or drugs. When, near the end, we get a brief glimpse of Di Caprio possibly 'caring(?)' about his daughter it's a case of "oh, where did that come from? Are we suddenly supposed to think he has life motivation from his daughter?".
Some of the bad language is warranted, it's even given a justification in the first part of the movie, but, buy the end of the movie, you can't help but have this insatiable desire to hear just one line of regular dialogue. Anything. Heck, just buying a burger or something where he would speak without swearing. It's like Tourrettes - The Movie.
Add on top of this the fact that none of the characters are likeable. They're not even crime-caper likeable rogues. It's a case of just watching asshats be asshats.
And some people claim this is the whole point. The movie isn't crappy because… it's a metaphor for our crappy world therefore it's genius, not crappy. Well, no, no it's not. It's not anything, and when it does try to be something it uses the cop-out of ambiguity to avoid making any kind of point.
There are entertaining scenes, but the whole is not entertaining. There are dramatic scenes but the whole is not at all dramatic, it's not a drama unfolding. There are hilarious scenes, but it's not a comedy, it asks you to take it seriously. But what exactly am I supposed to take seriously? I have no idea.
Is it just a fun romp of a movie? Yes. But at 3 hours long…. again, no it's not.
Now, don't get me wrong, the acting is superb, Di Caprio was perfect in the role, as were his friends and wives, even the FBI guy. The sets were great and some of the set-pieces were superb. Many scenes are perfect youtube videos to be replayed for eternity. But the whole movie?
It's a textbook example of a movie not being the sum of its parts. A disparate collage of random scenes bunched together and presented as a whole unit leaving you wondering why anyone bothered to make a movie about this bloke, the Wolf of Wall Street, at least, make it in the way that they did. I agree with one post I read where someone described it as Scorsese does
Adam Sandler… 6.5/10
and I'd give it 5-6 of 10. Even so I might watch the sequel some other Sunday afternoon.
