Blu-ray Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

STUDIO: Paramount | DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese | CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Morgot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Joanna Lumley
BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASE DATE: 3/25/2014 | PRICE: DVD $29.99, Blu-ray $39.99
BONUSES: featurette, digital copy
SPECS: R | 179 min. | Biography crime | 16×9 widescreen | 5.1 DTS-HD | English, French, Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

It’s greed, drugs and debauchery galore in filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s (Hugo) The Wolf of Wall Street, which is based on the memoir by former stockbroker Jordan Belfort.

In the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) plays Belfort with gusto, jumping in with both feet to all the craziness. Belfort begins the film as a rookie stockbroker, inspired by a brilliant Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), who gives out tips like masterbating more than twice a day to stay relaxed.

When Wall Street crashes, he takes McConaughey’s style to heart on penny stocks, quickly building his talent for sales into a multi-million-dollar company. And that’s where the craziness comes in, from high-priced escorts to street-walking hookers, to every kind of drug.

Of course, there’s also the bent laws, and there’s where agent Kyle Chandler (Argo) comes in. Greed doesn’t pay if you don’t know when to walk away and say enough.

Leonardo DiCaprio is ably supported by Jonah Hill (Moneyball), father Rob Reiner (Flipped), wife Margot Robbie (TV’s Pan Am) and her British aunt Joanna Lumley (TV’s Absolutely Fabulous) in a great cameo.

The movie does have its faults, though, first and foremost its length. Much of the movie is devoted to how depraved DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort and team can be, but we get it quickly, and after a while it ends up watering down the lifestyle Martin Scorsese’s trying to setup.

Still, Scorsese’s a genius at unravelling a story, and he succeeds wonderfully again The Wolf of Wall Street.

Surprisingly, the Blu-ray has only one special feature, featurette “The Wolf Pack,” with Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, among others, talking about the making the movie. It’s got some interesting moment, like DiCaprio and Hill talking about how coming to terms with their despicable characters. But mostly it’s a standard making-of with actors and filmmakers describing how great it is to work with each other.

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