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 The film, which opens in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, is
based on the memoir of disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who
made a fortune by defrauding clients and spent it on expensive
cars, homes, a yacht, hookers, orgies and all the alcohol and
drugs he could consume.
Scorsese, the 71-year-old Academy Award winning director of
2006's "The Departed," strays from the cinematic turf of
mobsters to focus on a different type of crook in the film that
magazine Screen International described as "'Goodfellas' without
the guns."
"I'm interested in people — some people who are basically good
but do bad things," Scorsese said.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" reunites Scorsese with triple Oscar
nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, who worked with him on "The
Departed," "The Aviator" and "Shutter Island."
DiCaprio, 39, read Belfort's no-holds barred, unapologetic book
about six years ago and knew he had to portray the
cocaine-snorting, fast-talking financial bad boy on the big
screen, and had Scorsese in mind to direct.
"I felt his biography was a reflection of everything that is
wrong in today's society. This hedonistic lifestyle, this time
period in Wall Street's history where Jordan basically gave in
to every carnal indulgence possible and was obsessed with greed
and obsessed with himself essentially," he said.
The three-hour, R-rated film earned a Golden Globe nomination
for best movie in a musical or comedy and a best actor nod for
DiCaprio, generating speculation of more to come when the Oscar
nominations are announced on January 16.
Terence Winter also picked up the National Board of Review award
for best adapted screenplay for transforming Belfort's book to
the screen.
"I couldn't believe that what I was reading was a true story
about someone who is actually alive at the end of it," Winter
said.
EMULATING GORDON GEKKO
The film charts the rise of the middle-class, dental-school
dropout from his introduction to the free-wheeling world of Wall
Street and the rise of his company during the bull market of the
'90s with all of its excesses, to his arrest and imprisonment
for securities fraud and money laundering.
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 With rousing speeches, Belfort fired up his
employees to cold call investors to sell stocks in a scheme that
would line their own pockets, not their clients'.
"These weren't the fat cats destroying our economy. These were the
street urchins. These were the guys from the underworld that were
trying to create a little island and emulate Gordon Gekko," said
DiCaprio, of the fictional character played by Michael Douglas in
the 1987 film "Wall Street."
onah Hill, an Oscar nominee for "Moneyball," plays
Donnie Azoff, Belfort's uncouth, loyal partner in depravity and
crime who helps organize a dwarf-throwing competition in the office.
Rob Reiner, normally behind the camera, takes on his first acting
role in a decade as Belfort's father. Kyle Chandler, last seen in
"Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo," is the incorruptible FBI agent who
brings Belfort down, and Australian actress Margot Robbie ("About
Time") is his second wife Naomi.
Matthew McConaughey, a Golden Globe nominee for this year's "Dallas
Buyers Club," appears as an early mentor, fond of cocaine and
multiple-Martini lunches, and French actor Jean Dujardin, 2012's
best actor Oscar winner for "The Artist," is a suave Swiss banker.
But the film belongs to DiCaprio. From his chest-pumping,
electrifying speeches to his hilarious turn slithering across a
driveway and into his sports car while out of his mind on Quaaludes,
he dominates the screen.
"DiCaprio doesn't just play this part; he inhales it, along with
everything else that goes up Belfort's nose and into his
bloodstream," the trade magazine Variety said.
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Vicki
Allen)
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