It’s tempting to compare The Wolf of Wall Street with that other famous ode to financial district excess, Wall Street. (Though it’s hard to tell if that’s the point.) In doing so, Scorsese may indeed want the reader to eventually be sickened by the unrelenting excess of it all. Scorsese seems intent on abetting Belfort’s attempt to spread the self-love and self-delusion, focusing on the sex, drugs and spectacle ad nauseam, and relying on those cheap shots of cinematic narrative-montage and voiceover-whenever the action slows. Even his drug use is something he mostly controls-only the failures of some of those less intelligent people he allowed on his coattails bring him down. From there, he quickly evolved from working harder to working smarter, in turn transforming a band of regular Joes into millionaires. To hear him tell it (and to watch DiCaprio act it), Belfort was an initially naïve stockbroker who had an eye-opening, if somewhat weird, lunch with an older broker (Matthew McConaughey). (Perhaps that’s the point?) Granted, the film is autobiography-con-men and addicts can spin the most charming and convincing of tales, and Belfort is both. Throughout the film, it’s hard to shake the feeling that too much of this particular tale is rigged. As a result, Belfort comes across as that old college buddy you run into at a bar whose wild stories of success and debauchery are pretty entertaining as long as you can ignore the obvious omissions and suppress your empathy for others. And the countless victims of Belfort’s schemes? Suckers who had it coming. There are a few instances of relationship fallout, but nothing the viewer doesn’t see coming or that Belfort doesn’t move on from. There are legal consequences, but the morality behind them is muted. It’s an account unencumbered by the more traditional balancing elements found in tales of hubris and addiction. Titled after the first of two autobiographies, The Wolf of Wall Street presents Belfort’s account of his own rise and fall(-ish). Given the two hours and fifty-nine minutes that follow, perhaps that’s the point. It’s a crude visual that even the sleek voiceover narrative can’t quite erase. Red Granite has already paid $60 million to settle a claim that financing for The Wolf of Wall Street had come from cash lifted from the sovereign wealth fund.Martin Scorsese’s new film opens with a scene in which protagonist/fraudster Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is inserting cocaine into the-well, let’s just say, employing an alternative though efficient method of introducing drugs to the blood stream-of a hooker.
The wolf of wall street 2013 movie trial#
Razak’s trial continues to add chapters to the ongoing 1MDB saga, which has captured the attention of the world as its reach has spread from Malaysia all the way to Hollywood. Prosecutors are continuing to lay out their case against Razak, while dates for the trial of Aziz have been tentatively set for Jan. Halmi said he was aware of what Red Granite was and that he had read that “Red Granite was using money that was allegedly siphoned from 1MDB,” according to media reports.īut Halmi denied having any knowledge of or even having seen a number of documents produced by the prosecution team. Malaysian media reported that the surprise document was produced last Thursday during lead prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram’s examination of prosecution witness and former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi. Now into its fifth week, the current 1MDB trial is focused on Razak, who faces 42 charges linked to theft of about $4.5 billion from the sovereign wealth fund. He faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of the charges and is currently out on bail. Aziz faces five charges of laundering around $250 million out of the 1MDB fund. It was founded by Riza Aziz, stepson of disgraced former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, whose case is at the heart of the 1MDB scandal.Īziz founded Red Granite in 2010 alongside Joey McFarland. Red Granite Pictures was the Los Angeles-based filmmaking outfit responsible for the Martin Scorsese-directed The Wolf of Wall Street, along with Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace and Alexandre Aja’s Horns.
0 kommentar(er)
