The Wolf of Wall Street
2013
Martin Scorsese

I recently went with my girlfriend to see The Wolf of Wall Street. This movie is about Jordan Belfort and his company Stratton Oakmont. Stratton Oakmont was a boiler room. The story follows Jordan from starting out as a stock broker, to his ascendency and financial success, and finally to his arrest.

I had watched the previews and read a little about the movie before I saw it but I was still surprised by many aspects of the story. First off this is rated R for a reason. There was a lot of sex and drugs. Way more than I was expecting. No matter what else you may think about the characters one thing everybody must agree on is that they lead quite an exciting life. Not a life for everyone, mind you, but an exciting one.

I had three main takeaways from this movie:
1) If something sounds to good to be true (stocks in particular) it probably is.
2) White collar crimes carry way less penalties compared to other types of crime.
3) Don’t do drugs.

The main character and his pals had a lot of money and partied a lot. But they didn’t exactly acquire all of the money legally. They never show the person on the other end of the phone. We only see the perpetrators and their lives. I wonder if this still goes on today, and if it does I also wonder how widespread it is.

After the movie my girlfriend and I tried to come up with characters that we liked. There were not a lot of candidates. I liked the FBI agent and the friend who was a drug dealer (Brad – the character with the mustache and the foreign wife). I also thought the Swiss banker was funny and Aunt Emma was a nice addition to the cast and story.

Did you see this movie? What did you think of it? What was your favorite character?