219 - The Wolf of Wall Street

    The rise and fall of Jordan Belfort, a stock trader who was convicted in 2003 of securities fraud and money laundering.
    I’ve been reluctant to watch Scorsese movies for awhile now.  I liked Goodfellas during high school, but eventually I grew out of it.  I realized that I find many of his movies kind of indulgent.  I think I like my stories a little more compact, tightly wound.  (Although Cathy didn’t care for Shutter Island, I remember liking it, and I’ve intended to revisit that one soon.)
    This movie is hard to avoid comparing to Goodfellas.  It’s long, at three solid hours.  It’s a similar rise and fall structure.  It ends with the person being convicted, ratting out his accomplices, and pining for the life he once led.
    There’s one key difference.  In Goodfellas, Henry Hill’s life is in a pretty constant decline.  He peaks pretty early on, but the drugs filter into everything, he gets less likable, and more and more people have to be killed off.  It gets harder to feel like it was a life worth living.  Here… I don’t get a sense of that.  It’s a party time from the beginning until about 15 minutes from the end.  Even the sequences that should have been terribly bleak feel like they’re being played for laughs.  He insists on his yacht being driven into a storm?  The scene becomes a joke as he sends his buddy down below to get some drugs.  Even after the ship capsizes, there’s a little dance party afterward.  What’s the message?  It doesn’t really matter.  He’s got enough money that it doesn’t matter at all.
    All of the negative consequences of Belfort’s behavior are personal problems.  Divorce, jail time… everything is softened because of his wealth.
    As I watched this, I thought of all of the people from my class that went on to work in finance.  Some of them were decent people.  Some of them were the most amoral people I knew.  I can imagine this movie captivating, especially in the time leading up to high school.  Without a strong moral core, I feel like this movie is missing something important.

    I read a handful of reviews on IMDB, and it reminded me of a few things.  The movie follows the general layout of a normal story, but it’s padded out to an excess.  There are loads of scenes that don’t really advance the story, or do it in the longest way possible.  Then there are a few other sequences that gloss over substantial events.
    Even though I can’t say that this is actually a good movie, it’s an entertaining watch.  Performances are fun, direction is usually enjoyable, and the quick pacing gives it a sheen of humor.  But at the core, I can’t say that this is good.  I can’t recommend it to anyone.