The Wolf of Wall Street - My Favorite Character? The Three Hour Length.

A lot is being said about the controversies surrounding The Wolf of Wall Street. It celebrates excess, its misogynistic, it turns ruined lives into entertainment. I'm here to tell you that this is a movie made for smarter people. Which may actually be very dangerous. I am going to pretend that I got it, although I am sure there is much more to this then I have even started to mine. Let me start by saying I hope you get it. This man is wrong. This man is evil. This man is not to be celebrated.

Jordan Belfort. This guy is an ASSHOLE! Get it?

Jordan Belfort (our Henry Hill, played by Leonard DiCaprio) is a Wall Street broker who starts his own firm and sells junk penny stocks (wait till you see a picture of the first company he panhandles for eight grand in a garage). Everything he does is illegal. '90 excess abounds. Steve Madden shoes are remembered as more then a discount item at DSL. Jordan and his right hand man Donnie Azoff, (played in true Joe Pesci style by Jonah Hill) a children's furniture salesmen from LI, get rich. They start a firm with a Lion as it's logo. Jordan gets written up in Forbes and suddenly they are rich. Very, very rich. Ludes and coke and crack and hookers and marching bands and human darts and mansions and yachts and helicopters, OH MY!  SO MUCH EXCESS! What makes us hate them when all they want to do is have fun?

THE GODDAMN LENGTH!

It's three hours long! Directed by Martin Scorsese and Written by Terrence Winter (writer on the "Sopranos" and creator of "Boardwalk Empire") this is Scorsese's longest movie. Never known for his short film times, he made a conscious decision to make this movie LONG. Three hours of these assholes doing asshole things (sexual assault at 5,000 feet is brought sickeningly to mind) gets tiring. Scorsese plays with the concepts of comedy. Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio are moving in slow motion, eating ham and tied up in a phone chord while talking like Dora speaking Whale and I wasn't laughing. I'd had enough. I couldn't take it anymore. I need this man to stop. A two hour movie wouldn't make me turn the way I did. It was too much excess, it was too much greed. He wasn't a 90's Gordon Gekko, he was addicted to WANTING MORE. Everyone wanted something, and they wanted more of it. Driven by money. I wanted this to stop.

Seriously. Stop.

This was also a movie about movies. Like Hugo before it, Scorsese can't seem to make a film without loving other films. With voice overs and characters reminiscent of his own "Goodfellas", the get the prettiest girl antics of his "Casino" and Kyle Chandler's FBI character's "Graduate" moment, Scorsese is always there to reward movie fans. I love that about him. (Although the soundtrack was glorious, no "Gimme Shelter" SPOILER!)

This was a movie for a smart audience. Will it make future ceos who want this life? You betcha. As the movie itself states "Any press is good press". Soon there will be young men banging down the doors to get a job slinging penny stocks. Getting rich will always be a sick, twisted racket. But look at what excess does. The american dream has been twisted to a drug addled, armani wearing rape culture. Will this movie change things? Hell no! This movie may do more harm then good. For me though? It made me want to go home and write about it. That counts for something.