Coluna Claquete – January, 1st 2014
Movie of the Week: “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Who is willing to watch a movie of Martin Scorsese can always expect a polemical work. After all, is there a more controversial example that the magnificent “The Last Temptation of Christ”? So, “The Wolf of Wall Street” also brings his controversies, especially with the regard to the man that’s being portrayed, the Wolf himself.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” has as main character Jordan Belfort, a stocks broker that earned millions of dollars in fraudulent or at least unethical transactions, being investigated by the FBI, and after convicted, spent less than two years in federal prison. Today he lives by his fame, presenting motivational speeches worldwide – and his market is expected to grow a lot after this movie.
In the story brought to the screen, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a young aspiring broker when he got a job at a brokerage firm on Wall Street, where he worked hard to progress, faithfully following the teachings of his unorthodox mentor Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey ). When he finally managed to be effected as a broker of the firm, came the Black Monday in October 1987, which made the markets from various countries collapse, leaving the financial world in panic.
Without job and very ambitious, he ended up working for a tiny company dealing with low-value stocks, which were not traded on the stock market, named “penny stocks”. To his surprise, the brokerage fee for this type of business was very high, and he begins to earn a small fortune from it.
It was there that Belfort had the idea to start a company focused on this type of business, inviting Donnie (Jonah Hill) and other friends from the old days they sold meat door to door, creating the Stratton Oakmont, a company that makes all of them enrich quickly and also lead a life devoted to pleasure. He did not care much for small savers that explores, as its goal was always to earn more and more money.
Ambitioning highest flights, he went on Wall Street, by a fraudulent release of actions, a process called IPO, similar to a Brazilian oil company that sold millions of shares without having drilled a single well, and now worth a fraction of its original price.
Investigated by incorruptible FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), Belfort tries everything, persuasion, bribery, false documents, evasion of money to an account in Switzerland, an agreement with CVM there he did not comply, but in the end he went behind bars – for a short time, given the severity of the consequences of their actions.
The film outraged many people who were harmed by Belfort or others like him. The victims claim the glamorization given to the crook, never showing the damage it caused. In Brazil, the sparing use savings accounts and investment funds, but in the United States, the average person invests a lot on the Stock Exchange. Thus, a lot of people lost all their savings, believing in Belfort, and buying shares of backyard companies, or many others that even existed outside of the paper.
Another negative aspect was the excessive exposure of the vices of the protagonist and his associates, with many scenes using drugs, booze, call-girls (there was even a quality scale that varied with the price), and all kinds of profligate spending.
Cinema should not be moralizing, this is a family function. However, we live in an age where being successful is having money, wear expensive clothes, big cars and parading alongside with young and beautiful women. When it shows a crook as Belfort with such exposure, is like a billboard saying “be rich, no matter what.”
The film is very well done – it’s a legitimate Scorsese – with fine performances, which have earned a Golden Globe for Leonardo DiCaprio and five nominations for the Oscars, including Best Picture. However, the viewer should be warned that there are several scenes of nudity, sex and drug use. Incidentally, in the first scene of the film, the protagonist smells cocaine using the butt of a woman as support. Really suitable for adults only.