'The Wolf of Wall Street,' a Scorsese epic of American greed

EMULATING GORDON GEKKO

Escapism from a 'vulgar' filmmaker

Nanyang odyssey

The film charts the rise of the middle-class, dental-school dropout from his introduction to the free-wheeling world of Wall Street and the rise of his company during the bull market of the '90s with all of its excesses, to his arrest and imprisonment for securities fraud and money laundering.

With rousing speeches, Belfort fired up his employees to cold call investors to sell stocks in a scheme that would line their own pockets, not their clients'.

"These weren't the fat cats destroying our economy. These were the street urchins. These were the guys from the underworld that were trying to create a little island and emulate Gordon Gekko," said DiCaprio, of the fictional character played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film "Wall Street."

Jonah Hill, an Oscar nominee for "Moneyball," plays Donnie Azoff, Belfort's uncouth, loyal partner in depravity and crime who helps organize a dwarf-throwing competition in the office.

Rob Reiner, normally behind the camera, takes on his first acting role in a decade as Belfort's father. Kyle Chandler, last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo," is the incorruptible FBI agent who brings Belfort down, and Australian actress Margot Robbie ("About Time") is his second wife Naomi.

Matthew McConaughey, a Golden Globe nominee for this year's "Dallas Buyers Club," appears as an early mentor, fond of cocaine and multiple-Martini lunches, and French actor Jean Dujardin, 2012's best actor Oscar winner for "The Artist," is a suave Swiss banker.

But the film belongs to DiCaprio. From his chest-pumping, electrifying speeches to his hilarious turn slithering across a driveway and into his sports car while out of his mind on Quaaludes, he dominates the screen.

"DiCaprio doesn't just play this part; he inhales it, along with everything else that goes up Belfort's nose and into his bloodstream," the trade magazine Variety said.

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