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Leonardo DiCaprio embodies the role of Jordan Belfort and plays it perfectly, but it does have a feeling of Goodfellas 20 years on, but with stockbrokers intead of mafia, and with DiCaprio instead of Liotta, since there are times when he’s addressing the audience directly, right in the middle of a scene, in front of everyone. Scorsese has every right to use this technique, and I can see why he has, but there’s something about its use here that just feels a bit off.
Margot Robbie plays Naomi, the model who was to later become his wife, and who is played with a voice like Lois Griffin from Family Guy. I can only presume that’s her real voice. There’s also great support from Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, who lives in the same low-rent apartment as Jordan early on in the film and who ends up working for him, Matthew McConaughey‘s all-too brief appearance as Mark Hanna, Rob Reiner as Jordan’s father Max, and a great turn from Kyle Chandler as FBI Agent Patrick Denham.
The Wolf of Wall Street has broken all records for the number of swear words in a film. The total is around 500, but it does help that it’s a very long film so it can fit that many in. On another comparison, Goodfellas also broke the record at the time with around 250 f-words.
On BBC’s Breakfast, on Monday January 13th, BBFC Acting Director Mark Austin (below) was interviewed to discuss this. As you can see in this video, he explains that it’s not just the swearing that garnered the film an 18-certificate, but also certain other scenes, and as he describes them, it causes Susanna Reid to wonder whether Breakfast should also be classified 18!
Conversely, Dubai have censored the film such that around 45 minutes have been excised, including scenes regarding sex and drug-taking, leaving the film “incomprehensible” and angering film buffs.
In addition, there are a handful of odd little continuity errors here and there, such as when people are looking in different directions between camera cuts, and also in one early scene where Belfort first meets Jonah Hill’s character, the camera view changes and Jordan’s still talking while he’s now seen to be eating.
Overall, The Wolf of Wall Street is a long three hours, but it does need that time to tell the story. And it’s a good story, but it’s a hell of a lot to take in, in one go.
The Wolf of Wall Street is out now on Blu-ray, DVD and Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook.
Go to page 3 for the presentation and the extras.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.