Dazzling decadence

Scorsese’s ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ a relentlessly-paced, darkly hilarious romp

It’s said that youth is wasted on the young. But in the world of film, youth is often the time when a director does his or her best work. That’s not a given, obviously, though the roster of directors whose later films fall short of their earlier, sometimes more stratospheric achievements is long.

Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t have another “Apocalypse Now” or “Godfather” in him. His latest film, “Twixt,” marks the continued downward trajectory in a spiral that began with 1996’s “Jack.” Legendary horror master Dario Argento’s newest, “Dracula 3D,” almost seems like a joke when compared to such assured and iconic entries as “Suspiria” and “Tenebrae.” I’ll take Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark” over “The Hurt Locker” any night. Don’t get me started about George Lucas or Peter Jackson.  

Martin Scorsese’s filmography is loaded with classics and masterworks, and like any director, he’s not perfect — though he’s gotten closer than most. There’s simply major and minor Scorsese with the occasional bum note in an otherwise uninterrupted symphony of cinema. It’s arguable whether or not he’s ever made a flat out bad movie (he hasn’t, so shut up already) but there’s one thing that’s certain: “Wolf of Wall Street” is as vibrant, propulsive and masterfully made as any of his best films.

Based on the memoirs of corrupt, drug-fueled stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), “Wolf” tells the true story of how Belfort, after losing a high profile brokerage gig during Black Monday, starts back at the bottom, shilling penny stocks out of a strip mall office to unsophisticated investors.

Eventually, Jordan meets restaurant manager Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill, with some disconcerting teeth); and Donnie, impressed with Belfort’s take-home pay and magnetic personality, immediately quits and takes shelter under Belfort’s wing. They found their own brokerage, Stratton Oakmont, and — with the crew of bush-league but unscrupulous brokers from the strip mall — go on to make illegal billions and indulge in most of the known forms of debauchery before it all comes crashing down.

The narrative parallels to “Goodfellas” are apparent. Even the delivery and inflection of DiCaprio’s narration is reminiscent of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, as Belfort regales ordinary Joes with decadent anecdotes of how the better 1 percent live. There’s the meteoric, criminal rise of our anti-hero and his ultimate, barely sympathetic fall; the theme of how living outside the law not only pays off in spades but that the line between making your fortune legally — or not — is razor thin. Henry Hill wasn’t as smart as Jordan Belfort, but they were both perfectly adapted to rise to the top of their respective, nearly Darwinian socioeconomic jungles. Though it’s Belfort’s hubris that ultimately cuts him down to size, the system he gamed is sadly still the same. The implication being that gangsters and Wall Street operate by whatever thin rules exist and they both get away with it, unrepentantly suffering the minimal consequences.   

“Goodfellas” echoes notwithstanding, “Wolf” is very much its own animal. One parallel that doesn’t exist between this or any of his past work is Scorsese’s gleefully unapologetic eye for the absurdity of Belfort’s story. Midgets are tossed on Velcro targets for sport; all manner of sexual depravities are indulged (in lieu of his trademark violence). There’s the roller skating office chimpanzee. And the scene between a Quaalude-addled Hill and DiCaprio has to go down in history as one of the most blackly funny comedy-of-errors sequences ever put to film.

The pace is amazing. “Wolf” blows through its 179-minute runtime like a freight train. It feels in no way like the work of a 71 year-old director. Terrence Winter’s script is lean and muscular, establishing an intoxicating tone that stays the course under Scorsese’s borderline frenetic direction. It’s as if the movie is on as much cocaine as the people inhabiting it. Long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker and newcomer Rodrigo Prieto’s (“Argo”) deft cinematography ice the cake in expertly crafted cinematic style.  

DiCaprio is on fire here. He’s the star and it’s his show. But despite the risks he takes (and he takes quite a few) it’s really Jonah Hill who kind of steals the flick. His Donnie Azoff is creepy and charismatic, and Hill proves his range yet again after his Oscar nomination for 2011’s “Moneyball.”

With “Wolf,” Scorsese humors our classist prurience to the point that it becomes its own thematic bit of satire, resulting in one of the year’s more hilarious comedies, and (I have to imagine) the funniest three-hour long film ever made.