The Wolf of Wall Street (18)

Master director Martin Scorsese's best film in almost a decade is still in cinemas; the magnificent, sickening and beautiful, The Wolf of Wall Street.

The Wolf of Wall Street (18)
(This review was first published on threadsuk.com)

You’d never picture Leonardo DiCaprio playing an ugly character, but The Wolf of Wall Street defies nature casting him as one of the filthiest, most repugnant characters ever seen on screen. Not on the outside of course, but on the inside.

The real life ‘wolf’ of the title is Jordan Belfort, who upon first hearing this broadsheet bestowed nickname was un-flattered and furious. All his life his sole ambition was to make a fortune, and in the late eighties he began a career as a stockbroker. He learnt an aggressive and unforgiving style of offloading worthless shares to gullible investors, and by the early nineties had set up his own firm and was literally rolling in cash.  Meanwhile the FBI had their eye on him from the start, and quietly stalked him in the years that followed.

DiCaprio, keen to play Belfort and push the boundaries of his acting range, persuaded his mentor Martin Scorsese to tackle the project. Scorsese’s stroke of genius was to shoot the film in the only way that could make three hours of unapologetic wickedness watchable - by twisting it into a black comedy so audaciously hilarious it’s impossible to look away from.

The film is a delicious whirlwind of excess and energy, a trait Scorsese maintains despite limited use of his trademark ever moving camera. Another Scorsese staple that makes a welcome return is the non-stop jukebox soundtrack; his most contemporary compilation yet and a treat for the ears. The film’s frenzied drug-fueled sequences are among the most intoxicating pieces of pure entertainment Scorsese has ever made.

Thelma Schoonmaker, his longtime editing partner, had the unenviable task of piecing together what must have been a (digital) mountain of footage, and the result is a sprawling, indulgent runtime that the director apparently struggled to reach after his preferred edit ran closer to four hours! This traces the source of one of the film’s only weaknesses, a few slightly disjointed scenes with glaring continuity errors, likely not helped by the amount of improvisation the director encouraged his actors to experiment with. These flaws are a small price to pay, however, for the mad, inspired pieces of acting they afforded.

Much can and must be said about DiCaprio’s performance. There’s never been a more apt time to laud his abilities - he’s never been better, and probably never will be again.  It’s a no holds barred, guns blazing, thunderous turn that blows away his past performances in terms of dynamite charisma. He’s likely second only to Daniel Day-Lewis as the greatest actor working today. He loses himself in Belfort’s despicable character with such glee, that it must have been intimidating just to be near him on set. If he doesn’t win the Oscar this year he might as well retire in protest!

Screenwriter Terence Winter, as a former regular writer for The Sopranos and having collaborated previously with Scorsese on Boardwalk Empire, has impeccable pedigree. His sly and hard hitting script doesn’t disappoint, sporting boldness and subtlety to spare.

Some have criticised the film for glamorising the lifestyle of these money-grubbing conmen, but such critics are completely missing the point. The lifestyle is glamorous, it is attractive. It absolutely does make civilised, modest ‘good citizens’ look like boring nobodies, or ‘schmucks’, as a character in another Scorsese film might say. The Wolf of Wall Street does nothing more, and nothing less than portray the tempting sights, sounds and pleasures of total immersion in sin, in all their technicolour wonder.

But while Belfort was living it up, the law was watching, waiting to strike. The real crime is what became of him after that day had come and gone - an infuriating injustice that he may well get away with, until the day he dies.

The real Jordan Belfort

Scorsese’s scorching picture is a terrifying defrocking of the outrageous immorality and lack of consequence that goes unchallenged around the globe (not just in the world of high finance), and a spine-chilling finger pointed at the audience, saying, “Deep down you really wish you could be like this guy, don’t you?” The scary thing is that if we’re honest, most of us would have to answer ‘yes’.

The Look of Love (18)

The latest collaboration of comic legend Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom is out on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

The Look of Love (18) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

A personal passion project of Steve Coogan’s, The Look of Love reunites him with director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, The Trip) to tell the tragicomic true story of Paul Raymond, the man who built a fortune on erotic theatre and clubs, owned half of Soho and became the richest man in the UK.

The character of Paul Raymond fits Coogan like a glove; he ticks all the boxes that drive him as a performer - he’s a vilified monster with a lesser known side that’s uncomfortably recognisable as universally human, and his line of business lands him in all manner of surreal and darkly humourous situations.  Winterbottom and Coogan are a dream team, and this was an obvious project for them, the director playing to the actor’s strengths in areas such as improvisation and comedy.

We are introduced to Raymond in his latter years, looking back on the wild ride of his life in the light of a family tragedy that suddenly frames things differently, and for a moment Raymond is quiet, sober and reflective.  The rest of the film is a whirlwind tour of his lavish lifestyle, dizzyingly presented through hyperkinetic editing and eye-popping colours, not to mention nudity in quantities that might have made Raymond himself blush.

Besides the classic song, the title refers to the performance of porn actresses as they’re required to appear to be enjoying what they are doing.  It’s a subtle insight into the falseness behind the marketing of human flesh, that’s still going strong today.  Raymond constantly ignores reminders of the importance of family and the damaging nature of his work, and it’s telling that in their research the filmmakers struggled to find anyone who was truly close to him.

As expected the supporting cast sometimes struggle to keep up with Coogan’s in depth and exploratory performance, particularly in the improvised scenes.  Still strong though are Tamsin Egerton as Amber, one of Raymond’s mistress/muses, and Chris Addison as photographer Tony Power.  British comics from Steven Fry to David Walliams fill out most of the other supporting parts - perhaps comedians are the only ones happy to touch this kind of hot material.

The delivery of the moral is heavy handed but true, King Midas being a parallel so obvious there’s even a scene where Raymond himself ponders it.  For a film that on one hand warns of the dangers of hedonism, it takes a surprising amount of relish providing gratuitous titillation of it’s own; an uncomfortable ambiguity that Coogan and Winterbottom are typically happy to settle for, but also one suggestive that there may yet be answers to the questions posed, even if the filmmakers stop short of discovering them.

DVD Extras: Deleted Scenes, Paul Raymond Timeline, Interviews with Cast and Crew

My Left Foot (15)

Recently released on Blu-ray, My Left Foot is a must-see British classic from 1989.

My Left Foot (15) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

My Left Foot tells the inspirational true story of Christy Brown, a writer and artist born in Dublin in 1932.  It was years before he could express himself, even by speech, because he was born with severe cerebral palsy.  Director Jim Sheridan’s film adapted from Brown’s first book, brilliantly tells the story in a series of flashbacks that vividly bring to life the tale of an artist’s rise to prominence against near impossible odds.

As we witness Brown’s early years, his disorder is harrowingly compared with the Catholic notion of Purgatory, with the young Brown empathising with the suffering souls that he hears about in Church.  Sheridan cleverly conveys an inkling of the depths of frustration that those who can’t communicate with others must feel.

Brown’s uniquely Irish humour brings a sense of mirth to even the most awkward situations.  “F**k Plato!” he barks at his speech therapist, after she has fulfilled her promise to help him enunciate his expletives more clearly.  One of the most painful facts Brown has to face is that no woman will ever love him other than platonically.  He also sees advantages in his loneliness, reflecting on the scope for creativity that his isolation brings.

The screenplay by Sheridan and Shane Connaughton highlights aspects of Brown’s life that fit the mould of a feel-good movie, and a cursory investigation of the truth reveals that liberties have been taken.  Suffice to say if you want to keep the feel-good factor, don’t go digging into the history afterwards.  The script remains a textbook example of how to turn a biography into something exhilarating, and the intentions behind the tweaks were surely noble, with the writers’ arguably being vindicated as the film has since become a touchstone of hope for many with conditions similar to Brown’s.

No review of My Left Foot would be complete without waxing lyrical about the incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis; it’s tough to find a more towering performance by an actor in all of film history, before or since.  It’s a passionate and heartfelt example of an actor fully committed to his craft, and though Day-Lewis reportedly put his colleagues through the mill by remaining in character throughout the shoot, even to the extent of needing to be fed at lunch breaks, the results speak volumes for the value of method acting.  Hugh O’Conor also deserves kudos for his heartbreaking portrayal of the young Christy Brown.  His performance isn’t diminished alongside Day-Lewis’s, no small feat for a fourteen year old.

Sheridan has crafted an explosively uplifting piece of cinema, but the liberties taken with the truth of Brown’s life raise questions of how far it is right to go in pursuit of a good movie.  Perhaps focusing on things in a positive light does more to honour Brown’s legacy, but the opposite could equally be argued.

Blu-ray extras: Cast and Crew Biographies, Stills Gallery