Terrorism in Munich

ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"One Day in September" is an effective propaganda piece, not necessarily an effective document of the times in which it is set. Propaganda is a one-sided view of making people believe in one theory without presenting others. A true document of a chaotic mess like the 1972 Munich Olympics is to show various points-of-view and present it honestly, offering arguments from both sides of the coin, not just one.

The idea that the Olympics would take place in Munich, Germany where a host of Israelites would be performing their games was already a momentous occasion. It was an opportunity for Germany to amend for the Holocaust and for the 1932 Berlin Olympics, which Adolf Hitler had attended and was a sight for many Hail Hitler salutes. Many Israeli athletes engaged in every sport, from weight lifting to fencing to swimming. All this is shown as a montage with music from "Joy" by Apollo 100. The Olympics is destined to be a great success. But something horrible happens. A few Palestinian terrorists from a group known as Black September infiltrate the apartment buildings where the athletes stay and take several of them hostage. The demands of these terrorists is to release three political prisoners or else they'll execute one hostage at a time. The German generals and police try to negotiate with little success, and we also see how unprepared they are for this (not to mention the lax security at the Olympics event in the first place.)

Unfortunately, director Kevin MacDonald treats the documentary subject as if it was Oliver Stone coming in and fiddling with the reels, switching and ignoring information with careless ease. Stone could make a better film from this subject than MacDonald has, but something is certainly off in the execution. For one, the film uses some narration voiced by Michael Douglas that does little to inform us of the chaos and the political subtext from either side (as a rule, documentaries are generally better without narration). Thus, we learn little of why these Palestinian terrorists chose to use the Olympics as the setting for a hostage situation (possibly media glory knowing the whole word would know about it, but that is a moot point. Carlos the Jackal was reportedly behind the Black September group, a fact largely ignored in the film). We also learn too little of the German police and security, not to mention the government who are shown to be callous and arrogant and want the Olympic games to continue despite the hostage situation. They are also shown to be unwilling, at one point, to release any political prisoners for any terrorist, and very willing the next moment to do anything for these terrorists after they hijack a plane - a hijacking that has since been the subject of much speculation. But the Germans, both the security and secret service, look like fools who commit one too many blunders. One such blunder, a tense sequence to be sure, is when a raid is about to take place at the apartments where they plan to infiltrate the terrorists until the Germans realize their very efforts are being televised, and possibly watched by the terrorists. Then there is the airfield where the terrrorists want to take the hostages by plane to Lybia or some such area. The snipers are deployed but are given erroneous information and end up killing their own, not to mention causing a bloodbath where no hostages survive as a result.

"One Day in September" does focus on one of the hostages, a fencing coach named Andre Spitzer, and his wholesome image as portrayed by his widow, Ankie Spitzer, who was very much in love with the man. If only the other hostages merited as much screen time so we could understand the loss more vividly. A little more exposition on these terrorists would have been nice (this is not about being sympathetic to their cause, only to understand motive). The film focuses on the tense situation at Munich but never establishes the personalities of those involved, especially the terrorists. We do get one surviving terrorist, Jamal Al Gashey, who talks about how proud he is since the hostage situation helped the world turn its attention to Palestine. Some of this is fascinating to be sure but not enough to establish a clear goal, and what exactly was Palestine going through at that time? And why does director MacDonald show a montage of corpses with rock music in the background?

For an attempt to see the chaos that occurred in those fateful days at Munich, "One Day in September" is an essential film record of that moment. If nothing else, it will make you seek out literature on this still very relevant subject today.

Road Trip with smarts

THE DAYTRIPPERS (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1997)

Road movies have always been treats to watch because you feel you've been on one yourself and can, therefore, identify with the characters who are heading on some kind of unknown odyssey. The road movie genre is part of a very long tradition that includes everything from "Easy Rider" to "Thelma and Louise" to 1996's riotous "Flirting With Disaster." "The Daytrippers" is not in the same league as those classics, but it is a sweet, calm precious little movie that should not be overlooked.

The movie starts with a sweet married couple on their way home from Thanksgiving. They are Louis D'Amico, a book editor (played by the charismatic Stanley Tucci), and his blonde AND MUCH TOO SWEET WIFE, Eliza D'Amico (Hope Davis). They arrive home, and make love. There is nothing here to suggest a troubling marriage until the next morning when Eliza finds a love note to her husband. She is a little startled by it but not too upset. Considering her befuddlement, she goes to her mother's house to show the note. The mother, Rita (Anne Meara), is alarmed and insists on taking the whole family, including her husband, Jim (Pat McNamara), their younger daughter, Jo Malone (Parker Posey) and her boyfriend, Carl (Liev Schreiber), to find Eliza's husband in the city and confront him. I don't know of any family that would embark on such a journey but anything can happen in New York, which is where this movie takes place.

The main reason "The Daytrippers" works is because the characters are captivating and show their true colors. This movie could be the basis for a sitcom with one-liners stretched throughout and endless comic set-ups, but writer-director Greg Mottola wisely opts for a genial, warm tone that is unheard of in most movies today.

The actors are a mixed bag but they are pleasurable to watch and listen to. The star of this bunch is Anne Meara (Ben Stiller's mother) as the overbearing mother Rita who dotes on her daughters and simultaneously destroys their relationships. Her philosophy is that she will stand by them, but she will not allow them to screw up their own lives. Parker Posey, the omnipresent indie star of the moment, is indelibly gracious and alluring as Jo Malone, the younger, trashier-looking daughter (I would have loved to have seen more of her). Liev Schreiber is marvelously witty as Jo's boyfriend who prattles on about his novel concerning a man with the head of a dog, and he has a smartly written scene with a novelist (the grand Campbell Scott) where they argue about politics and the social classes. Stanley Tucci has a cameo appearance but his presence resonates throughout this oddball road trip - his final scene at a book party is a revelation. The one character that does not work is the crucial role of Eliza. As played by the pallid Hope Davis, she constantly appears unconcerned, reticent and blank - excuse me, but shouldn't she show a little concern and be just a tad upset at the notion that her husband might be having an affair? Her last scene in the film is a travesty to witness.

"The Daytrippers" is good enough to admire on its own merits. Excluding Hope Davis, the casting is impeccable, the grainy color photography brings an inviting sense of homeliness and reality, and the writing is consistently delightful. If only director Mottola let these "daytrippers" embark on the road with no specific agenda or plot to carry them through but rather just to make it as a study in observation, then we might have had a minor classic here.

50's melodrama with a modern lens

FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

My Choice for Best Film of 2002

I think it was only a matter of time before Julianne Moore appeared in a 1950's period piece. Moore has the innate ability to adapt to any time period, just as she did in the fabulous "An Ideal Husband." But her performance in Todd Haynes' highly melodramatic "Far From Heaven" is not the performance I expected. Moore handles the role as well as you can imagine but you have to look beneath the surface to discover what the film and the performance really mean.

Set in Hartford, Connecticut, Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a picture-perfect image of the ideal housewife. She is always beaming, drives a stationwagon, takes good care of her husband and kids, cooks meals, and has regular visits with her girlfriends about the latest gossip and carpet color-matching schemes. Her husband, Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid), is a workaholic sales executive. Their image is so picture-perfect that she is constantly photographed in her home or in other whereabouts like an art gallery. Indeed this whole word seems too fabricated to really believe, and we are right to have those assumptions.

Just like when nothing seems wrong at the surface, we slowly uncover Frank's secrets. At the start of the film, Frank is arrested by the police for drunk and disorderly conduct. Cathy's party proves a bust since she has to pick up him at the station. But Frank has more up his sleeve when he is discovered kissing another man at work by Cathy. He is a closeted homosexual and convinces his wife that he will seek help to "beat this thing." The homosexuality is a threat to their marriage, not necessarily to the unaware community.

Curiously, the homosexuality awakens Cathy to other things. Sure, she has her clique of friends including her gabby best friend, Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson), but something is missing. When Cathy finds that she has a new gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), she also finds a friend who can really listen to her. The problem is that Raymond is black and this is the 1950's, long before the civil-rights movement. Cathy and Raymond become friendly, attend the same galleries and eat at a restaurant that only blacks frequent. Never mind that Cathy is absent-minded and fully supports the NAACP, the community looks down at her as does her husband. In other words, homosexuality is kept in the closet but racial, non-romantic relations are best left unseen or else you will be shunned. That kind of hipocrisy has never really been addressed before, and I imagine that it has more to do with the expected roles of men and women in society.

"Far From Heaven" is directed by Todd Haynes who previously worked with Moore in "Safe." Haynes has crafted a style for the film to assume the look of a movie from the 1950's. Curiously, it is not just the filmic style, which incorporates the use of dissolves as continuity from one scene to the next, as well as the Technicolor look of those 50's melodramas by director Douglas Sirk with those high-angle crane shots of leaves in the foreground as we descend upon a familiar sight - a big house with a white-picket fence. And it is not just the syrupy, impactful music by Elmer Bernstein, himself a product of those times with his memorable scores. The acting and dialogue style are filtered from the way Hollywood movies used to depict those times. In other words, leaving aside the taboos of race and sexual identity, "Far From Heaven" looks exactly like a film from the 1950's that has only recently surfaced. The reason for this postmodernist "Pleasantville"-style may be to dig up the repressed feelings that were inherent in the Hollywood films of the 50's, and serve them straight up. For example, race and sexual orientation were barely ever discussed in those films (the same could hold true of society back then). Thus Haynes finds a way of articulating those reserved emotions and getting them literally out of the closet. For example, "ah, geez" is a term you might have heard in some of those films, but certainly the F-word was never uttered in a Hollywood film until 1970's "MASH." When Frank angrily spews the word, it feels like a sudden shock of reality since we don't expect to hear it.

The movie never aims to be parody but its mannered, stylistic speech could easily have led in that direction. That is why it is hard to know how to respond to Julianne Moore's performance, which is pitch-perfect in its honing of such delicate, refined dialogue. The dialogue is not sparkling or poetic yet it is unironic and well-suited to the time and place it evokes. It can induce laughter in the audience, such as when Cathy admits to Raymond at the gallery that she is not prejudiced and supports the NAACP. Again, what can induce laughter is the very notion that we have been fooled into thinking we are watching a movie from the 1950's, thus her comments seem shocking. Another noteworthy scene is when Frank enters a bar for homosexuals, and they look at him with humiliation. This scene seems directly lifted from a similar moment in 1962's "Advise and Consent" where Don Murray looked suitably humiliated to be in a club for gays.

"Far From Heaven" is a film buff's dream, a stylistic stretch of the imagination of a decade that is rarely discussed much anymore. Not only is it a walk back into the past, it is like Douglas Sirk literally came back from the dead and made a movie in the same style of his cult films. More significantly, it is about the possibility of change and of trying to break through the facade by being yourself. Cathy does change but does not try to change for others. Her friends shun her but the most heartbreaking scene is when she tells the ousted Raymond she will visit him in Baltimore. His response is that it is not a good idea. What Moore and Haynes have done has not really been done before - to recreate a cinematic past and uncover what was hidden. This is a marvelous film that grows on you long after the credits.

3 hours a Tarantino Slave

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Quentin Tarantino's "Southern" film (not western, though it may as well be) is a crackerjack blast of heightened fumes, and it is sometimes a painfully uneven picture. It has a majorly supercharged cast and lots of pointed, delectable dialogue and bizarrely intense situations but it falls on its face when it decides, with brief bursts, to be allegedly both comedic and dramatic. Whereas "Inglourious Basterds" dealt with Nazis and war cliches by fusing them without losing sight of a consistent tone, "Django Unchained" has a wildly inconsistent tone. Despite that, it is one hell of a mean, demonic ride at the movies.

Set in the Antebellum South pre-Civil War, Django is a slave who is rescued by a former dentist and active bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who is looking for a partner to help locate murderous robbers. Dr. Schultz carries wanted posters and a wallet while armed with a gun under his sleeve. Django goes along for the ride, learning how to kill and maim the enemies while being a free slave. The last thing anybody has ever seen in the Deep South is a black man on a horse, and this notion is carried out through the rest of the film. Django strikes a deal with Schultz to help find Django's enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). She is working for the flamboyant and vicious plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who deliciously plays a seething villain) and Django plans to rescue her. Easier said than done.

"Django Unchained" lets loose with whiplash cinematic flair as only Tarantino can, but his setpieces are not nearly as loud or grandiose as anything in the "Kill Bill" volumes or "Inglourious Basterds." Tarantino holds back this time, and sometimes mutes the energy of comical scenes that should be hysterical. The KKK clan who wear unsophisticated hoods over their heads struck me as humorous yet hollow, much like a similar sequence from the Coens' deadening and laborious "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" A startling flashback with Bruce Dern who sentences Django to a chain gang strikes the right chord but that is the QT's trademark - Tarantino knows how to engineer the intensity at feverish levels. Leaving aside comical bits (like Django's rather unflattering costume with ruffles that is not played up much), Tarantino also shows scenes of slaves eaten by dogs, Mandingo fighting where one is beaten to death with fists and a hammer (the term "Mandingo" was not coined at that time and comes from a film with that title), and whippings of slaves by their slave masters (though there is nothing here as graphic as "12 Years a Slave"). Such scenes are imposed into the narrative to perhaps show the grave brutality of a particularly brutal time, but they do not mesh with the spaghetti western theatrics that figure prominently in the film. I expect to see gunfire in a Tarantino movie but a movie like this at times borders on the cartoonish and the comical. I am not talking "Blazing Saddles" comedy hijinks here but the humor doesn't balance well with the realistic torture we are occasionally privy to. "Inglourious Basterds" is a whole other kettle of fish where the brief bouts of realistic violence (Nazis beaten with bats) were never played out throughout the film - they meshed with earlier scenes of violence because neither depiction was too cartoonish. With "Django," Tarantino seems to be stuck between making serious parallels to slavery and associations with a playful, slightly comical, heightened style a la Sergio Leone.

Performances range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Christoph Waltz once again proves that he knows how to handle Tarantino dialogue better than most other actors - his presence alone is phantasmagoric and magical (it is a 180 from his evil Landa in "Basterds"). Leonardo DiCaprio is a frightening Satanic Candie and his last half-hour where he tries to manipulate our heroes is pure genius to watch. Samuel L. Jackson plays an exceedingly tough house slave who grows suspicious of Broomhilda and Django. Jamie Foxx exudes toughness and a tinge of sadness (particularly when he sees how the slaves are treated) as Django that makes this one of his better roles since 2004's "Ray." Only Kerry Washington falls short of fully realizing her character - looks like she got the shaft in the editing. Nice to see character actor greats Don Stroud and Lee Horsley in a movie again. But why do we see Amber Tamblyn so fleetingly? Actually, I did not even spot Russ Tamblyn and blink and you will miss Ted Neely, the Jesus of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And can we please dispense with the QT playing any sort of role in his movies?

Do not get me wrong with this review. Aside from its flaws, "Django Unchained" is still a solid, entertaining, and compelling effort by Tarantino and it is original and spiked with enough flavor to render it as a middleweight in between the ranks of the director's crowning achievements. Despite the occasional unevenness of its violence, the movie gets better and better as it rolls along to a truly infernal finish that will leave you breathless.  Just don't say you weren't warned with the nastier parts.

The Cliched Sounds of Death in the Hills

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2007)

Like most recent remakes, "The Hills Have Eyes" has no real reason for its existence other than to annoy and frustrate. I love the original film for its starkness and grittiness (a reason some of the 70's low- budget shockers worked so well). This redux of the Wes Craven classic has some shock value and some gore, but it lacks the punch to the gut the original delivered.

The film begins with a cliched opening credits montage where we see authentic photos of deformed babies frantically cut with blood imagery and real atomic blasts, all set to the tune of Web Pierce's "More and More." The remake of "Dawn of the Dead" had something similar in crosscutting newsreel footage with faux news reportage but it felt more inspired - in this film, it is nothing short of uninspired. Nevertheless, it sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Carter family is on a trip by stationwagon and trailer to California when they stop by a New Mexico gas station and are tended to by a grizzled attendant (played by the great character actor Tom Bower), who insists there is a faster way to get to the highway. Of course, this detour is actually a deathtrap where cannibals live in the hills and are ready for a massacre. There will be a couple of survivors and the rest will die, begging the question why nobody thought the gas station attendant might have been a little too creepy (especially keeping a purse in his little home).

The Carter family is comprised of the patriarch (Ted Levine), a former cop aching to be a security guard; the matriarch (Kathleen Quinlan, obviously in for the easy paycheck and a visit to Morocco, which is where this film was shot); the eldest daughter (Vinessa Shaw) who has a new beau in her life, a Democrat wimp (Aaron Stanford); a younger, teenage daughter (Emilie de Ravin) who loves her iPod; and their son (Dan Byrd) who has no qualms about picking up a gun (thanks to Papa Carter). Naturally, when trouble starts brewing, cell phones don't work (hey, they are in the desert near an atomic testing site) but CB radios work like a charm. And there are those typical family squabbles, such as Republican Papa Carter disapproving of a wussy, pussy like his daughter's husband.

In terms of blood and gore, it is piled on excessively. For the first forty-five minutes (excepting the pre-credit sequence), there is no gore until we get a rape scene, shots to the head, a dog is killed in a manner not unlike the opening of "Cabin Fever," another character delivers a shotgun blast to his own head, another one is burned alive, and so on. You've seen it all before, though never quite as nasty in its execution, pardon the pun. When the movie is over, you'll remember the violence and nothing more. Granted, the original "Hills Have Eyes" was not especially different but it had urgency and you felt these cannibals and their victims were not automatons (Remember Michael Berryman, whose visage was so scary that it become the selling point of the film?). Here, one bloody, visceral thrill with bloody entrails every few minutes doesn't equal suspense or any real scares. And if I have to hear another person scaring someone else with that accompanying and grating musical cue of crashing cymbals, I will gag.

The cinematography by Maxime Alexandre is quite amazing, especially the wide, high-angle shot of the crater with abandoned vechicles. To be fair, the final ten minutes have some shock value (including seeing a cannibal with a John Merrick-sized head). The actors, though, seem to exist in a vacuum of vacuousness. Unlike the original film with its Manson-style murders and memorable final freeze-frame that implied the victims are no different than the monsters, this remake will have you running for the hills all right, without anything to latch onto. At least, it is better than Wes Craven's abominable "The Hills Have Eyes Part II."

No longer a haunting at that Long Island home

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Whether it is a cruddy sequel or prequel makes no difference - "Amityville II: The Possession" bears little relation to the original 1979 shocker or the actual events that transpired long before the real-life Lutzes (the inspiration behind the original book) moved in to that dreaded Long Island home. Although it is not as sleep-inducing as the original film, it resembles more of an "Exorcist" redux at best.

A new family named the Montellis move into the Amityville house with those eerie windows. There is a force within the house that even the movers feel - basically, it is wind that penetrates walls and turns crucifixes upside down. It also turns water into blood and back into water. It ruffles Mama Montelli's shoulders when she is in the basement. Papa Montelli (Burt Young) is already an abusive lout who hates church and supposedly hates all four of his kids and his Catholic wife (Rutanya Alda) - his character is practically cut out of the latter part of the film. Seriously though, what a nice family.

As for the Montelli kids, there is Sonny Montelli (Jack Magner), the older sibling who clearly has a thing for his sister, Patricia (Diane Franklin of "The Last American Virgin" and "Better Off Dead" fame). They share one particular scene that develops with tension and unease as Sonny gingerly gets his sister to disrobe for him - it is the one scene that is handled tastefully if not honestly in the entire movie. There are two younger siblings, a younger brother and sister, who love each other as siblings should without any incestuousness.

If "Amityville II" had handled such difficult material for a mainstream horror flick with such restraint, it might have worked as something more than a casual retread of "The Exorcist." Though this is supposedly based on the terrifying true case of murders within the DeFeo family, the movie skimps on reality and assumes that a demon made Sonny kill his family (to be fair, the real-life shooter Ronald DeFeo initially claimed he was possessed). The house in Amityville is not actually haunted this time; it is more of a malevolent demonic force that occasionally knocks on the front door in the middle of the night and speaks to Sonny via his Walkman!  Then we get the actual shootings by Sonny (with a distorted, demonic face) that remains the most chilling sequence in the entire film. Of course, the actual shootings from the book (Hans Hozer's "Murder in Amityville") claimed that Ronald shot his family while they slept in separate rooms.

Then the movie belabors for another half-hour with the priest (James Olson) trying to convince the police department (including a detective played by Moses Gunn) to let Sonny go and be exorcised at his parish. The movie becomes sillier and more convoluted leading to anything but an actual exorcism. More like a cleansing.

I was never a fan of "The Amityville Horror" but I am fascinated by the book and the bizarre DeFeo family murders. Dino DeLaurentis produced this so-called prequel when in fact it is more of a sequel (the 80's look by way of automobiles and a Sony Walkman) but it doesn't even retain the original's infrequent eerieness. Italian director Damiano Damiani keeps the camera moving and tilting and zigzagging but there is no unifying sense of fright or chills. The actors recoil at bloodsoaked horrors in the kitchen and the bedrooms without the slighest hint of surprise at what they are witnessing. I would be more than willing to leave a house where there is so much blood coming out of a faucet and an unexplained mural in the kids' bedroom with writings that say: "Kill the pigs." Jack Magner does come close to evoking a certain kind of steely menacing look crossed with a little bit of charm. Other than that, this Amityville sequel's singular purpose was to make the bee-line for the box-office.

Wolf of Wall Street is not porn!

SEX, DRUGS AND...MORE SEX AND MORE DRUGS (but that is not all)

By Jerry Saravia

"The Wolf of Wall Street" may very well be the most divisive film of director Martin Scorsese's career. I thought audiences were going to tune out from this film because it deals with a former Wall Street broker who scammed millions from the 98% and the richest 1%. It opened on Christmas Day, a day associated with the celebration of the human spirit and the birth of Jesus, not the celebration of a Satanic Caligula dressed up in modern clothes having sex with every hooker and consuming endless lines of cocaine. But what I thought was going to be a box-office bust wound up doing pretty well the past couple of weeks, scoring more than 68 million in box-office revenues, just behind the newest "Hobbit" flick. However, any time a film biography arrives, especially one this incendiary and passionate, the naysayers come out in full force. A few critics loved the film (I count myself as a supporter) but some critics, like David Edelstein and Michael Philips, have taken issue with the depiction of Jordan Belfort's excessive lifestyle. One of the first scenes in the film is Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) receiving oral sex in his Ferrari. Not too long after, he snorts coke from a woman's anus! Much later, Belfort's cronies have an office sex party where each male waits in line to have sex with a hooker. Sometimes it is a female worker at Belfort's Stratton Oakmont offices who delivers oral pleasure to every worker, and even marries one of them! Jordan has sex with his trophy wife (Margot Robbie) more than three times, and a scene where he forces himself on her has been criticized as a rape scene. I will not forget to mention there are a few shots of erect penises and vaginas as well, unusual for a R-rated film (Scorsese did trim some sex scenes to avoid getting a NC-17 rating).

Then there are the drugs, copious amounts. Cocaine is snorted with dollar bills and snorted on women's orifices. Matthew McConaughey, playing Belfort's first boss, snorts it at a business lunch as common ritual practice. Quaaludes figures prominently in the latter half of the film, quite hilariously during an extended sequence where Belfort tries to get inside his car by dragging himself literally in the street! Jonah Hill, playing Belfort's crummiest employee and confidante, also does his share of quaaludes including some from an expired date where it takes longer for the effects to be felt.

This depiction of Jordan Belfort's exorbitant lifestyle has been deemed as accurate by former friends of his and others who have crossed his path. But no one has discussed the copious amounts of shots of money. Money is flung into wastebaskets, flung at FBI agents, strapped around a female with tape and, a cliched shot to be sure, thrown into a bed where lovemaking occurs. The idea is that Belfort made so much money, he did not know what to do with it. That should make people angry - after all, he took from his investors who dabbled into penny stocks and larger stocks without ever giving anything back. Belfort gets away with it because he has a lethally persuasive charm and it helps that Leonardo DiCaprio plays the role with more vigor and passion than almost any other role he has ever played. DiCaprio persuades us to take this trip with him, but he is not always likable. Belfort punches his trophy wife in the stomach, takes his kid away and almost gets killed in the process. Belfort has been investigated by the FBI and decides to do rat out his friends, thus receiving a light jail sentence. Of course his own confidante (Jonah Hill), who gets wind that the party is over, decides to rat out Belfort.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" has also been criticized as ignoring the victims of Belfort's scams and schemes. But this is based on Belfort's two bestselling-books, and he never expresses sympathy for them in the books either (until recently, in the last few years, where he expressed disgust over his lifestyle, thus all profits from the books and the film have been given to the victims as part of his legal restitution). Ignoring the victims from Belfort's point-of-view fuels the flames of resentment towards Wall Street and all the Bernie Madoff's of the world.

The notion behind Scorsese's "Wolf" is to characterize this guy as scum, a rotten, money-grubbing individual who, in one scene where he flips the bird to a cold caller whom he later calls a loser, loves money and nothing else. By observing his flamboyant lifestyle and his endless motivational speeches to his crew (Belfort is now a legal motivational speaker), we see a swindler, a con artist who is unapologetic from first frame to last. Viewers who walk out (a twitter account has been established for this purpose) on "Wolf" because it is too excessive or maybe too boring (though I can't see how) are missing the film's acerbic humor (the Golden Globes have nominated the film for Best Comedy). You can call "Wolf of Wall Street" whatever you want but it is definitely not porn nor is it a comfortable movie experience, but there are more than a few funny lines. "Wolf of Wall Street" is an indictment of a man who stole from the rich and the middle-class to give to himself. An observation of what Jordan Belfort is rather than who he is has pretty much defined Scorsese's cinematic career - he divulges insights based on behavioral study. All this talk of too much sex, too much profane language and too much drug-ingesting neglects the bigger issues.