Released on Christmas Day in America, and in Britain on Friday, the film, directed by Martin Scorsese, came garlanded with praise by critics who called it "exhilarating" and "hilarious". But Mr Shearin's interest in the film was nothing to do with the reviews or the lurid trailer which promised three hours of sex, drug-taking and depravity among a group of amoral stockbrokers in Nineties America. Quite the opposite. The businessman wanted to see the film because he had first-hand experience of the events it depicted, as a victim of the real-life "wolf", Jordan Belfort.
Wolf of Wall Street: 'I only targeted the rich'. The Wolf of Wall Street is the modern equivalent of a Shakespearean history play. Margot Robbie: 'Nudity for the sake of nudity is shameful'. The best new films on release this week. Meet the wolves of Canary Wharf. The Wolf of Wall Street, review. Belfort, portrayed by DiCaprio, was founder and president of the New York investment banking firm Stratton Oakmont which, between and , made outrageous profits β even by Wall Street's high standards β while conning small-time investors out of millions of dollars.
As one of them, Mr Shearin is appalled by the way the film seems to glory in its protagonist's crimes, playing his hedonistic lifestyle for laughs. And what he was about was harming people financially. Bob Shearin. The victims, many of whom lost their life savings, are also disappointed that DiCaprio made a second promotional video for Belfort's new motivational-speaking business in which the actor extolled him as a "shining example of the transformative qualities of ambition and hard work".
I think the film should be called 'My Adventures with other People's Money' because that's what it boils down to. You can steal more money with a pen than you can a gun. Three hours long, with more than utterances of the F-word, a feature-film record, The Wolf of Wall Street tells of the upstart New Yorker whose first business β a meat-selling enterprise β left him bankrupt at the age of With such intoxicating wealth came a wild and decadent lifestyle.
At one point, he was hooked on 22 kinds, including cocaine and Quaaludes. His first luxury car was a white Ferrari Testarossa. Later, he bought a vintage Aston Martin that he kitted out like James Bond's, complete with a gadget to scatter nails on the road to burst the tires of potential pursuers. From its early beginnings in a spare closet at a used-car salesroom, Stratton Oakmont expanded swiftly until it was filled with the collective roar of 1, young stockbrokers, all urging investors over the telephone to buy.
