Chris Bryant | On 22, May 2014

Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill
Certificate: 18

You’d like to be rich, wouldn’t you? Do you know what can make you rich? Jordan Belfort does. He, and he alone, knows the secret to money. As Belfort shows, there’s one thing people want more than anything, and they will give anything to have it. They’ll give him – and you – anything to have this one product.

It’s not drugs, but they’ll give you their drugs. It’s not cars or houses or expensive suits, but they’ll give you their cars and houses and expensive suits. The only product you need to make money – and Jordan Belfort knows this – is the one product people truly want: money.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill as Belfort and his second-in-command Donnie Azoff, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street explores what you can do if money is no object – but you know that money is always the object. Faultlessly written, the film grabs the Ferrari keys and attains a consistently riotous pace for over three hours. Belfort and Azoff can do a lot in three hours.

From the jaw-achingly hilarious Quaaludes scene to the pair forsaking their family and friends to ensure they stay rich and get richer, the cast and crew make Wolf a terrifying, obscene joy. If you’ve ever wondered what The Social Network would look like if Zuckerberg spent more time taking amphetamines, Scorsese’s drama is a step in that direction.

DiCaprio’s well-publicised Oscar snub should tell you all you need to know about the leading man of this production. Possibly the greatest actor not to have an Academy Award, his charisma leads the production, flanked by Hill’s perpetually weird yet equally ruthless sidekick and his wise-cracking wife (Margot Robbie).

Teaming up with arguably cinema’s greatest living director, the result is a farcical, outrageous explosion of drugs, sex and money. It’s The Great Gatsby on cocaine, pot, crack, vodka, whisky – and an arrogantly large overdose of greed.

 

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