Review of The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorcese

All of these years have passed where I know about The Wolf of Wall Street, but have genuinely never cared to press play and actually watch the movie. I’ve just never been interested from what I heard about the movie, which has made me not really incentivized to watch it, as it seemed like a wild ride I did not really care to be a part of. What ended up getting me to watch this movie was the fact I was really bored when doing work one day, and I wanted something to play in the background.

So when I ended up scrolling through Netflix, I saw the The Wolf of Wall Street on the options. Once I realized that it was three hours, I decided why not? Killers of the Flower Moon was about to come out so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to just sit down and watch this while procrastinating on the five million other things I needed to do at the time. And while it might not be my favorite movie, I’m glad I just went ahead and knocked it out of the way.

Onwards with the review!

A Wall Street stockbroker fakes it until he makes it of the very top—then falls to the bottom again.

The film begins in 1987, when Jordan Belfort, then 25, works on Wall Street. He finds himself in love with the toxic culture he’s surrounding himself with, as everyone is cursing up a storm, doing hard drugs, and screaming at each other in a way that’s now considered abusive by most standards. Jordan becomes very inspired by his boss, Mark Hanna, who tells him that the only reason a stockbroker keeps going is to make money only for himself.

So Jordan loses his job on Black Monday, and finds. gig out on Long Island for penny stocks. Because he’s such an aggressive business person and has a good eye for what works with the people, he ends up getting really rich. With his neighbor Donnie, they open their own brokerage company and recruit the core team to get together for the job, and they all are trained in the art of hard selling, which is really just aggressively pushing products at people until they bite.

But basically, what Jordan is teaching them to push is really dishonest, as the art of selling products is really just about making them sound good. In this case, they give a lot of praise to a stock to inflate its price, so they can they sell it at a major profit. When they then sell it, the stock’s price plummets down, and the consumer who bought it is left with something that isn’t worth much. Their company becomes massively successful because of this tactic, and an expose runs in Forbes calling Jordan The Wolf of Wall Street.

However, this makes them more popular and everyone wants to work for the company because they see it as a chance to strike it rich. Jordan becomes obsessed with prostitutes and drugs in the meantime, starts an affair with a woman named Naomi, and then, when Jordan’s own wife finds out about this, he divorces her and marries Naomi. Their relationship is a mess throughout the film, as they are constantly fighting and he cheats on her. At the same time, the government starts to look into the company because of their shady business practices.

Things escalate when Jordan strikes a deal with Steve Madden, illegally making a ton of money. Jordan knows at this point that the FBI is definitely after him, so he starts moving his money into a Swiss bank account under the name of Naomi’s British aunt. He knows she is out of reach of American authorities, so putting it under her name is the best option—until it backfires later on in the movie.

The beginning of the end happens when Brad gets arrested. Jordan realizes his phones are tapped at that point, and is advised to quite his job, but still here he is trying to get this show on the road. He decides to go on a trip with Donnie with their wives on a yacht in Italy, but when they’re there, Naomi gets the devastating call that her aunt has died. While Naomi is evidently upset at what has occurred, Jordan is freaking out about the money in the Swiss bank. The yacht capsizes after they try to go to Switzerland to pick up the money, and Jordan decides to get better.

Two years later, two friends and associates get arrested and tip the FBI off. Jordan agrees to work with them to sell out other people, Naomi tells him they’re getting divorced, and Jordan, high on cocaine, tries to take their daughter away and crashes. When Jordan tries to slip Donnie a note while wearing a wire, that gets him arrested. He gets twenty-two months in jail, then teaches business seminars.

Overall Thoughts

I think Scorsese movies are quite the experience, and while I have not seen all of them, I would say that there are plenty of them that would be up there in terms of technical experiences and quality of filmmaking. I didn’t really say that I wasn’t enjoying this as a movie because it was out there, but it definitely evoked quite a few sensations throughout. The acting, too, was top level. I had no idea this was considered Robbie’s breakthrough until now, but I’m glad we got her.

Follow me on Instagram and Goodreads for more.