The Wolf of Wall Street – Movie Review

Celebrity guest contributor, the legendary Hugh Cornwell, reviews the latest epic from Martin Scorcese:

Move over De Niro, let Leonardo take over!

It looks like Martin Scorcese is running with a new pack of youngbloods these days. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and others show us how the Wall Street bankers have become the new gangsters. And in exactly the same way, we become involved with their lives and look out for them, just as we did with the mobsters in ‘Goodfellas’.

I was apprehensive before seeing The Wolf of Wall Street, thinking that three hours was going to be too long, but it doesn’t let up for a second. Brilliant in-depth set pieces form the majority of the film. Especially notable are all the scenes between DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, who is outstanding, and between DiCaprio and his second wife, played by Margot Robbie, and also between DiCaprio and the FBI investigator, played by Kyle Chandler, on a yacht.

Somehow Scorcese has managed to make us forget about the crimes these hoodlums performed, the monies they swindled out of poor citizens, and made us sympathetic to them. The budget was a staggering $100,000,000, and I guess we should be admonishing that amount of money being spent on just one film, but, hey ho, I had a great time.

Words by Hugh Cornwell. Visit Hugh’s own website here. It’s an online radio station dedicated to bringing the best of film, music, interviews and music pieces from his celebrity guests’ favourite films.