“The Wolf of Wall Street” Review
Since I’ve been in Boston for the entire weekend, I didn’t have time to watch a new series or movie. Instead of reviewing something new, I wanted to shout out a classic film that everybody should check out.
I’m currently writing this on an airplane, so my analysis will not be as insightful as I would like. This article will simply be a very surface level brief shout-out and recap of the film “The Wolf of Wall Street”. I will also point out a few things that make the movie so great.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” is a wonderful film by Martin Scorsese that everybody needs to watch at least once in their lifetime. There are other films by Scorsese that are classics, mainly “Casino”, “Goodfellas” and “The Age of Innocence”, but I personally think “The Wolf of Wall Street” might be his best work.
The film follows Leonardo DiCaprio in what is possibly his best role as Jordan Belfort. Belfort is a soon-to-be Wall Street “success” story, and his friend is portrayed by comedic legend Jonah Hill. The film shows how horrible the Wall Street mindset can be, and how it can change people for the worse.
While I personally think Hill’s best performance is “Superbad”, this movie played a part in solidifying him as the talent he is today. The movie follows Belfort’s story without missing a beat. It’s constantly entertaining and, as an audience member, you don’t even realize 3 hours have passed.
The film is a non-stop rollercoaster. So many things happen in the movie that it’s a miracle it doesn’t feel rushed. I think what’s so interesting about this film is the pacing. Other films like “The 400 Blows” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, (2 other films I could’ve just as easily written a quick blog about), are brilliant because of the slow moments shared with the characters.
Paraphrasing Roger Ebert, he once said those films allow the audience to “look through a window into the characters’ minds.” It’s creates a very personal bond between the characters on screen and the audience, which is a hard technique to mimic with any other art form. The difference between those masterpieces and “The Wolf of Wall Street” is that Street’s pacing is a million miles per second. It puts the characters on a god-like pedestal, and the film doesn’t allow the audience to bond with them. It’s genius because the film is about evil people. We understand human moments happen, but the film moves so fast that there is no time for them. Much like the lives of the characters, nobody gets a chance to breathe.
It’s a very popular film so most of everybody should have seen it by now. If not, it’s available on Amazon Prime and is essential viewing.
I love "The Wolf of Wall Street" it's one of my favorite movies and I think this is a great brief review. I agree that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill had amazing acting roles and the way you described how the movie had a million different parts but still didn't feel rushed was a good description.
ReplyDeleteI have never watched “The Wolf of Wall Street” but your blog completely made me feel like watching it. Your blog was like a real movie summary and I regret not checking yours last week. I love watching movies but I usually don’t have any purpose to watch the movies just to kill time or relax. By reading, I realized that there are interesting ways to watch movies not to kill time just like you mentioned great points of the movie and recommended it to others.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to watch "The Wolf of Wall Street." This has always been high on my watchlist but have procrastinated too long. This blog has finally gotten me to commit to watching and I will make sure to over this weekend. The role Leonardo DiCaprio plays is one of the most iconic roles in movie history, in my opinion. Inside the mind of Jordan Belfort is one of the smartest financial minds yet also one of the most corrupt. After reading this blog, I see that I will be in for quite the rollercoaster when watching this.
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