With nothing else on television last night, Greg and I decided to
use the On Demand feature in our cable package for the first time. We chose The Wolf of Wall Street figuring for
$5.99 we could turn off the television and go back to reading our books, and not
have wasted much time, money or energy if we were too shocked and appalled to watch very long.
Much as I hate to admit it, I found it very funny. What on
earth is wrong with me? It’s raunchy beyond belief (well my belief, anyway),
misogynistic, violent, and laden with scenes of illicit drug-taking. The
so-called hero — convicted swindler, money-launderer and erstwhile stockbroker Jordan
Belfort, played by Leonardo di Caprio — gets away with it, more or less. He
does have to spend a few months in an upscale prison post-conviction, playing tennis a good
deal of the time, poor fellow, before reinventing himself as a motivational
speaker.
This movie, directed by Martin Scorcese, reminded me of Pulp Fiction, Borat and Catch Me if You Can (where Leonardo di
Caprio was directed by Steven Spielberg). There is even a hint of A Fish Called Wanda both in the goldfish
swallowing scene and in the unholy desire of this audience of two to see what the
villains would get up to next. These movies involve trickster figures:
mischievous, rascally, really bad characters devoid of guilt, shame or
restraint. Their behaviour is sent up by
the movie-makers almost to the point of farce. Black humour abounds.
I was expecting a much darker movie along the lines of No Country for Old Men (the character
played by Javier Bardem is terrifyingly wolfish) or of Glengarry Glen Ross, which portrays the cut-throat, amoral aspect
of sales as very definitely unfunny. Most
of the dark aspects in The Wolf
of Wall Street are either alluded to
only briefly (the bathtub suicide) or occur to other unlikeable characters (the
butler hung over the balcony). You know that if the butler had fallen, it wouldn’t
have been intentional, but just a big mistake. It was cartoonish.
The only time in the movie I felt a quiver of genuine fear
and misgiving occurred when, after a fight with his wife, Belfort kidnapped his own daughter, placed her
in his car and tore out of the garage in reverse, only to hit a tree in the
front yard. He was stopped before too much damage was done. Shades of Tiger Williams
and his misadventures, sexual and automotive.
Another reason I liked this movie was that having spent four unenjoyable years in insurance sales in the late 80s, I
was reminded all too vividly of learning the art of the sales pitch. It’s not about the
product: it’s all about the buyer and motivating their desire. I loved the contrast
in the two scenes about the pen. Those Australians—or were they New Zealanders?
— attending the motivation seminar at the end of the movie sure have a lot to
learn.
When you watch the stock brokers in action in this film, you
are given a sense that they swindled so egregiously well because their victims were as greedy as they
were for easy money. Not a lot of sympathy is extended to them.
This was more of a caper movie than a particularly serious reflection about greed,
self-promotion and moral decay. If you want a more sobering look at Wall Street, watch Margin Call (2011) written and directed
by J. C. Chandor. Or remember Renata Ford's expression when Rob Ford apologized on camera for
his comments about his sexual preferences and drug use. No stiletto heel in the face there.
That news conference was not funny in the least.
