I started reading Jordan Belfort‘s non-fiction tale of his rise and fall on Wall Street which inspired Martin Scorsese‘s latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street, but I just couldn’t get beyond Belfort’s smugness and I stopped about 100 pages in. But while reading I couldn’t help but wonder how it would be handled. To make it a straight-forward drama would almost be to take the subject matter too seriously, it needed a measure of self-awareness about it and perhaps that’s exactly what Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter (“Boardwalk Empire”) have delivered, but don’t take what follows entirely at face value.
Tonight the first trailer for the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort has arrived, offering your first look at a film I expect will play something like Wall Street except filled with a lot more coke, hookers and apparently Matthew McConaughey.
Belfort was a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including mob infiltration. Joining DiCaprio in the film is the aforementioned McConaughey along with Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler, Margot Robbie, Jon Favreau, Rob Reiner, Jean Dujardin, PJ Byrne and Kenneth Choi.
I normally don’t watch trailers, but I’m already curious about this one so I gave it a look. I’d say most of what is seen here is from the pages I read where the story follows Jordan as he builds his own empire, and before he runs into trouble. The craziness with the dwarf, monkey, etc. is all set up, depicting the kind of life the guy leads. Even the part where Leo is on his knees, crawling to his wife is something much more than it seems…
The overall story, however, goes well beyond the craziness. Don’t expect this to be an out-and-out comedy, but do expect the first 30-45 minutes to be batshit insane… and, if you believe Belfort, true.
Paramount has set a November 15 release. Watch the trailer below.
