Great Review of "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Okay, so if you need
some kind of disclaimer about the sex, swearing, and drug use that pervades the
DiCaprio/Scorsese masterpiece The Wolf of Wall Street, please consult Focus on the Family’s Plugged In
Movie Review (if you dare).
Suffice it to say,
there are not graphic or profane scenes in this film – the film
itself is a graphic and profane scene. It is, in this sense, an
experience of the excessive, a revelation of the gratuitous. And how could it
not be? If we have any illusions about what happens, or has happened, behind
the facade of the financial district or any other elite cultural class, it is
the express purpose of this film to repeatedly slap us in the face until we
wake up.
That said, the story
of Jordan Belfort, a young, ambitious broker who makes his tens of millions
swindling the rich with penny stocks and creating tangled webs of insanely profitable illegal deals that
we, in the character’s words, “don’t give a shit” about understanding, is an
intentional hagiography, not an exercise in perfect realism. But the critical
uproar to the tune of gratuitous unreality and thus BAD MOVIE is not just bad
criticism – it’s emotions getting the better of people who are supposed to
recognize a great, and meaningful, film when they see one. The Wolf of Wall
Street is exactly that, precisely because it puts the abuses of the
arrogant and powerful on graphic display. In its stylization it is no less real
– it is perhaps only more effective at communicating the visceral reality through
the explicit and extreme storytelling.
The film is no doubt
operatic in its scale and tone. It is an epic. One feels, for about the first
2.25 hours, that they are watching a kind of Braveheart for the wealthy
and corrupt: Scorsese wants us to want Belfort to win like he’s a formerly
oppressed freedom fighter, a William Wallace of naked ambition and
uninhibited consumption enacting the liberation of all the once-broke
brokers at his cockamamie firm Stratton Oakmont. The debauchery is made to look
insanely fun, and just insane, a visual expression of what it must feel like to
imbibe the Quaaludes favored by the main characters – and in similar
quantities.
But as the final act
unfolds, it becomes clear that however we may have bought into the mad dream of
the Wolf (in defiance of our own blinking and cringing and, in my case, looking
down at my unlit phone when another naked blonde showed up), it was all
a bill of goods not unlike one of Belfort’s penny stocks. To watch this movie
is to be had, took, and bamboozled, even though you thought you were in control
the whole time.
When Jordan, already
under house arrest, turns on his wife and, in a coke-fueled rage, slaps and
punches her, then grabs his small daughter and tries to drive away with her
only to nearly end both their lives, the Quaalude trip abruptly ends.
And we are left
looking back at a 3 hour litany of grotesque and destructive sins.
The message of The
Wolf of Wall Street matters, and here’s why.
Yes, we are all
sinners – but there are wolves. The wolves are not those who merely sin but who
have concluded that their right to sin – in the extreme and at the expense of a
disproportionate number of victims – is inalienable and untouchable and
possibly even just. Wolves are those who abuse power with impunity but
still believe, like Jordan did in his final inspirational speech at Stratton,
that they are somehow doing enough good for themselves and others to justify
all of the bad. Wolves are deceivers, but they do not merely get off on the
act of deception – they relish the pleasurable outcome of their deception.
Especially if others share in the pleasures, like Stratton Oakmont’s brokers or
one of their lucky “charities.” In the sincere, and sincerely twisted, words of
DiCaprio’s Belfort, “Being rich makes you a better person.”
The logic of the
wolves is not unlike the logic of prosperity preachers (who are often wolves
themselves).
Wolves are not to be
treated with regard or compassion (much less admiration) – they are to be
discerned and avoided and possibly opposed. And if one is a wolf, as Jordan
Belfort, both real and exaggerated, most certainly was, then they may only
be redeemed if they are first stopped. And even then, it may be too late.
Interestingly, Scorsese himself commented on this
concerning the real wolves that are lurking in our self-obsessed cultural
milieu:
I’m afraid that
there is no redemption possible for wolves.
Jesus commented as
well:
I am sending you out
like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged
in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and
kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you,
do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be
given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your
Father speaking through you.
Brother will betray
brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their
parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because
of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Jesus’s concern here
was for his counter-cultural followers in the midst of powers, both secular and
religious, that have so deceived the masses as to endanger their very lives.
And this deception was not just reserved for the corrupt cultural elites or
religious leaders but even the members of one’s own household. The wolves can
be lurking there too. The potential for abuse, injustice, and betrayal to a
destructive degree can come from people and places you least expect. The way of
empire permeates. Self-obsession abounds.
Thus, we must be
shrewd even in our humility and kindness. We must be on our guard. And even that may not be enough. Be
prepared for what may come. Stand firm.
My favorite scene in
the film placed Belfort on his gigantic yacht in a face-off with FBI Agent
Denham played perfectly (as always) by Kyle Chandler. The Wolf lays the
brilliant groundwork for an underhanded bribe, and Denham follows the ruse,
playing along until the bitter end. Then, he brilliantly interrupts the grand
deception with nothing less than pure and unflinching justice.
Here is the shrewdness
amidst the meekness: to discern and know that the wolves are there in our
midst, and despite their friendly overtures and charitable gestures, their ways
are always, only, to harm and destroy.
After his release from
prison Jordan Belfort, both real and exaggerated, goes on to become a
motivational sales coach of sorts, appearing at various conferences and events.
Stripped of his power, he is left only with the ability to pitch, and to share
that ability with people lustily desiring success. We wonder if the Wolf has
really been redeemed.
But it’s hard to know
for sure.
Be on your guard.
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