Wolf of Wall StreetPosted by rubyroberts on July 7th, 2014 Our Leo has gone and won himself a golden globe for his portrayal of the notorious Wall Street stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who fraudulently made millions of dollars on the New York Stock exchange, which eventually resulted in him going to prison. The film has been met with mainly positive reviews, but it is also causing much controversy for its glamorous portrayal of the lifestyle of a financial fraudster. The Wolf of Wall Street is a comedy inspired by Jordan’s hedonistic memoirs and is a tale of sex, lies and sickening excess. Do we really want to laugh at the debauched life styles of one of the types of men that helped take the world into a financial crisis? Maybe I’m just being dogmatic, but the film glamourizes what is now seen to be a morally repugnant era and highlights the worst excesses of western capitalism. Admittedly Dicaprio plays the role well, he is a talented actor and his portal of Belfort is award worthy. Apart from his talented portrayal I don’t feel the film is actually that good, it’s a Scorsese film so it’s been received with the rapture that all of this talented directors films receive, but it certainly isn’t anywhere near in the same league as Goodfella’s or Gangs of New York. Which is reflected in him not receiving any awards for the film, just Leo as the lead. The Boston Globe said of the film. ‘In fact, there’s a lot wrong with “The Wolf of Wall Street.” For starters, the film makes Belfort’s crimes appear victimless. The scores of women hired to fulfil the porno fantasies of these drug-besotted millionaires are shown as overjoyed at the prospect and not suffering the slightest abuse. Furthermore, the investors whose lives Belfort took pleasure in ruining are kept off-screen and described as the “richest 1 percent,” when in fact they were middle-class amateurs.’ Admittedly if the film tried to take a moral slant and reveal the victims of Belfort’s crime, it wouldn’t be a comedy and it wouldn’t be a Scorsese film. It’s just another film glamourizing capitalist excess, of late the subject has become a box office crowd puller. Films like the Great Gatsby and numerous other Wall Street related films have pulled in huge sums at the box office. Out generation has at once become intrigued and antagonised by the capitalist culture we live in, that gives us so much but has the power, as we have seen, to bring us to our knees. As mentioned by the Globe, the film is packed with sex and nudity, full on female nudity and what can only be described as soft core porn. Belfort seemed to be partial to an orgy or two, as is portrayed in the film. We get to see Leo having full on sex with countless women mainly high class escorts in manchester, there are numerous orgies, full frontal female nudity and many other degrading acts including a woman shaving her head for ten thousand dollars so she can buy breast implants. This film is a feminists dream! Initially the film seems fun, our much loved Leo smashing another leading male role. You soon realise behind the fast paced visually stunning portrayal of the life of Belfort, lies just another tale of an egotistical fraudster who can’t keep his cash in his trousers. The hedonism, and the films boastful style soon gets repetitive and by the third hour it’s too much to take. I feel the film highlights all that is wrong with our times, we are entertained by the portrayal of the same capitalist excess that has brought the world into financial meltdown. Like it? Share it! |