THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Review

Martin Scorsese's whoopin' and hollerin' "The Wolf of Wall Street" has a lot in common with David O. Russell's zany and freewheeling "American Hustle." They both deserved more time in the editing room, two overlong sagas that have been hotly anticipated by critics and will both be lauded by the Academy. Maybe I missed the boat. With Scorsese's "Wolf," we have a two-hour-and-fifty-nine-minute film chock full of scenes that could've been trimmed by minutes. Add those minutes up, and it's the running time audiences should've been spared. Adapted by screenwriter Terence Winter ("Boardwalk Empire," "The Sopranos,"), the story of Wall Street master swindler and money laundering expert who started his own firm at age 22 and went on to screw over millions is no sprawling epic. It's filmed as an unrelenting barrage of excess, hopped up on the cocaine and quaaludes Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes for breakfast and the rest of these guys put into their system to stay numb to their sins -- didn't I make a similar drug reference to "American Hustle"'s style? I digress.

It's a parade of debauchery. Cocaine, the outlawed prescription pill quaaludes, booze, parties, more booze, bikini-clad strippers, more quaaludes, topless hookers, bottomless hookers, Leonardo DiCaprio's sinfully gleeful Jordan Belfort banging his hot wife (Margot Robbie) on a literal bed of money. OK, OK, we get it. This guy's rich, has no regard for any of the victims piling up in the wake of his success and is choosing to completely ignore his inevitable capture and downfall, and instead he soldiers on with reckless abandon. Ninety minutes later, we're still looking at the same guy. Smart move to have the film narrated by Belfort and make it from his perspective, which turns the film into a (very dark) comedy. Otherwise we'd blow our brains out.

There's no denying that DiCaprio's performance here is the craziest he's done and arguably his going-all-out, over-the-top barbaric best. Belfort, obsessed with a reality of himself that could only possibly remain temporary, is cut from the same cloth of DiCaprio's Gatsby earlier this year. Just hopped up on coke. He drives a white Lamborghini, lives in a beautiful mansion, fuels his mind on a cocktail of drugs, commands his office like the leader of a clan and carelessly drunk-pilots his helicopter which otherwise rests perched atop his extravagant yacht.

There are a number of great scenes. The film's best is actually its quietest moment when Belfort sits face-to-face meeting the very FBI agent (Kyle Chandler) trying to take him down. Watch the conversation weave against Belfort's favor and his expression morph when he realizes it's not going his way. The polar opposite is a scene where Jonah Hill's Donnie Azoff, in a performance that's like a whacked-out version of his Oscar-nominated turn in "Moneyball," takes aged lemmon quaaludes with his co-conspirator Belfort. They slam a fistful of pills, rendering them rolling on the ground useless, slurring their speech and hardly in control of their motor skills. It's slapstick absurdity, and it's an unsettling riot.

Matthew McConaughey (still thin from "Dallas Buyers Club") drops by in two early scenes and steals the show, showing a young, eager, not yet tainted Belfort the ropes of brokering, mandating he masturbate two times a day in order to stay sharp. Later, when the seasoned Belfort shouts in a microphone to his crowded, rowdy room of sleazy brokers eager like a room full of horny frat boys, the movie is firing on all cylinders.

It's pop-pop, bang-bang, non-stop all the time in "Wolf." Keeping that momentum up drains an audience who's awaiting an outcome other than the bitterly predictable. Go out with something for us to gnaw on, mull over about the depravity and dark underbelly of the American dream, of the get rich quick mentality. The live-wire energy is there and never not boring, and it's a grandiose display of sensationalism and crass capitalism, but in the end, what's it all for?

THE SPECTACULAR NOW Review

Apart from "The Spectacular Now" being -- dare I say it -- spectacular, it's so natural, unforced and wonderfully affecting. For a coming-of-age story of high schoolers with the usual tropes (hookups, prom and graduation), it feels nothing like your typical entry into the genre. Director James Ponsoldt's second film since his Mary Elizabeth Winstead showcase "Smashed" is a leap forward in craft and no less draws phenomenal performances from two central characters. Here it's Miles Teller of "Project X" and "Rabbit Hole" and Shailene Woodley of "The Descendants" who will both appear in the upcoming YA adaptation "Divergent." Their chemistry feels almost impossibly organic within long shots giving each scene an immediate intimacy and room for these actors to breathe. They, and this film, are a marvel.

The script comes from "(500) Days of Summer" scribes Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who adapted from a novel by Tim Tharp. The story centers on Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), the most well known guy in high school whose reputation isn't exactly clean. He's fun-loving and endlessly charismatic but reckless and bordering on alcoholism. But he knows about every party and knows everyone at them. One morning Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley) finds him passed out on a front lawn after yet another drunken night. He offers to help with her paper route because he needs to be driven around the neighborhood to find his car. So begins their mutually beneficial relationship, but as the film casually and soulfully moves them along, the line becomes blurred as to who's helping whom. 

Sutter believes he's doing Aimee a favor by paying her attention and inviting her to parties; he gets geometry tutoring in return. He gives her the courage to stand up to her mother and tell her she wants to go away to college; she gives him the courage to stand up to his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and ask to see his estranged father (Kyle Chandler). It's unclear whether Sutter is looking for friendship or courtship from Aimee, but she falls hard for the guy who always has a flask at hand. Sutter's ex-girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) watches as he takes Aimee in. "Have you turned her into a lush yet?" she asks him.

Sutter is sincere but indecisive and can turn on a dime. His motto is living in the moment, soaking up the ever-present now and not worrying about the future. But at such a pivotal life moment, that ideology keeps a person coasting in neutral -- the problem is that Sutter is complacent doing just that. Aimee has hopes for the future, and her relationship with Sutter transforms into something parasitic threatening to drag her down. Their complex push and pull is the driving force of "The Spectacular Now," a film which ultimately transcends its own high school confines. It's about being caught at the edge of growing up, taking responsibility and discovering whether you're going to land on the right foot when you cross to the other side.