A movie about a drug imbibing psychopath broker deserves an appropriately drug themed simile. The Wolf of Wall Street is like O.D-ing on every conceivable chemical available at once. You think you are trying a good thing, but you get too much, everything becomes god damn overbearing, agonizing racket, and it seems to go on forever.
I usually can't handle much of Di Caprio. The man has exactly two emotional states in every movie: off and on. Whenever he is on screen, he is shouting at the top off his lungs in fury. That worked in Django Unchained, where his puerile ranting only used up about 30 minutes of screen time, but in Wall Street, he is on camera for 180 minutes and you feel every one of them.
There are times where the excesses and insanity makes me laugh, and there are a lot of inventive moments - but these moments are stretched into long, long scenes. It's after what must have been the 10th Gordon Gecko style monologue/speech that I got a start on writing this review, because my attention was (is?) seriously flagging. This movie desperately needed cutting down, it is obnoxiously self-indulgent and a real life test of patience.
The other problem is that the real story doesn't start until a good hour in. This is really a movie about one scum-bag broker trying to survive an FBI investigation into his dirty dealings, but that really doesn't kick in till after a half dozen hooker parties and a lengthy origin story. Again, with some sensible editing this might have been a worthwhile wait, but its just too much.
Too Much of a Good Thing
A movie about a drug imbibing psychopath broker deserves an appropriately drug themed simile. The Wolf of Wall Street is like O.D-ing on every conceivable chemical available at once. You think you are trying a good thing, but you get too much, everything becomes god damn overbearing, agonizing racket, and it seems to go on forever.
I usually can't handle much of Di Caprio. The man has exactly two emotional states in every movie: off and on. Whenever he is on screen, he is shouting at the top off his lungs in fury. That worked in Django Unchained, where his puerile ranting only used up about 30 minutes of screen time, but in Wall Street, he is on camera for 180 minutes and you feel every one of them.
There are times where the excesses and insanity makes me laugh, and there are a lot of inventive moments - but these moments are stretched into long, long scenes. It's after what must have been the 10th Gordon Gecko style monologue/speech that I got a start on writing this review, because my attention was (is?) seriously flagging. This movie desperately needed cutting down, it is obnoxiously self-indulgent and a real life test of patience.
The other problem is that the real story doesn't start until a good hour in. This is really a movie about one scum-bag broker trying to survive an FBI investigation into his dirty dealings, but that really doesn't kick in till after a half dozen hooker parties and a lengthy origin story. Again, with some sensible editing this might have been a worthwhile wait, but its just too much.