The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

It has been a long time since Marty has made a movie this relevant and bursting with so much urgency. In the wake of the global financial crisis perpetrated by greedy sons-of-bitches just like Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street is the movie society needs to see.Yet, like its anti-hero protagonist, Scorsese's film lacks a moral compass. In exposing the rotting corruption and hedonism that is just barely hidden within Wall Street, he inadvertently winds up celebrating and glamourizing it. That the two guys sitting in the theater behind me cheered Belfort on as he sank to lower and lower depths of depravity is proof enough. Perhaps it is because Scorsese is still dealing with his beloved gangsters here, albeit a different kind of gangster, and that predilection to Hollywood it up just came naturally to him. But that is a dangerous game, because there is a difference between the gangsters in Goodfellas, and the gangsters in The Wolf of Wall Street; the gangsters in he latter, though based off real people, are mostly a fantasy, for the overwhelming majority of average people, the mafia will never play a role in their lives, but guys like Jordan Belfort, who target the everyman, do. Just look at Bernie Madoff. Or more close to home, my dad had a friend who was sent to federal prison for stealing money from the clients of his insurance company. The world is rife with Jordan Belforts. Though, perhaps it is not fair to say the film is entirely without a moral compass; Agent Denham, the one who brought Belfort down does act as that moral compass, but his presence is mostly relegated to the periphery. The final shot of Denham on the subway considering Belfort's question whether his job is worth what he makes at the end of the day, and realizing that it is, as he rides home with all these people who could have been victims of Belfort's schemes, is exactly what the movie needed more of. There needed to be a moral condemnation of these characters, because without it we are left with a orgiastic celebration of hedonism. If ever there were a thing as too much subtlety, this film falls prey to it.