The Wolf of Wall Street is a black comedy of the highest order. Scorsese hasn't made a movie this mean since After Hours. Of course, Paul Hackett is the kind of character you can root for, and the strange things that happen to him, arguably, aren't of his own making. Jordan Belfort, on the other hand, knows exactly what he's up to; he reminds us at every turn. What keeps him likable is an odd streak of naiveté that runs through him, best exemplified in his honest and warped, Kane-like devotion to his second wife. You can see, deep down, that he isn't such a terrible human being, but he, like all human beings, is capable of such terrible things. And this is why, I think, Scorsese and Sopranos alum screenwriter Terence Winter want us to laugh at him: he is, essentially, all of us. But there is and always will be, as suggested in the movie's most sober and poignant moment, a federal agent who takes the honest route home. It's reassuring, but it's not where we end: the camera ends on Belfort's audience, waiting for his secret to their success. It ends on us.
5 BANANAS
Written by Terence Winter
Directed by Martin Scorsese
2013
