Such a drag

What would you say of a veteran filmmaker like Martin Scorsese making such a drag of a film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street.’ That he has peaked after such classics like ‘Taxi Drier’ and ‘Gangs of New York.’ ? Or has he succumbed to market pressures. Well, one feels it is a little of all these factors to make him a shadow of his earlier self. Sad indeed.

After seeing Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street,’ this is like a fake. Based on a memoir of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), it is a rages-to-riches account of the man who made millions before “the curses and chickens came home to roost.” But what a display of excesses it is. “Money doesn’t only buy the things you like, it gives you a better life,” is his credo which draws hordes of humans to him like bees to a honeycomb.

The screenplay by Martin Winter is studded with clever below-the-belt lines, many by innuendo but the bs and fs fly like sparks on a dark night. There’s a cute one of women being bald from below the eyelids. But there are also gross ones to dull the innuendo. Belfort’s cronies are many: His boss Mark Hanna (Mathew McConnaughey), Ronnie Aroff (Jonah Hill) and his dad (Rob Reiner) with Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie) as the romantic interest. So it’s high life with luxurious yachts, swanky hotel suits, packed offices and the works but too much of a good thing can be boring. And sitting through 179 minutes of predictable, blasé and brash anecdotes becomes tedious. And yet, when the end comes it is abrupt. Can you believe that.

Do Caprio is as usual good though he has to scream his lungs out and stoop to gross deeds. The others are just part of the milieu and that includes talented Mathew McConnaughey.