The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

Based on the memoirs of stock market scamster Jordan Belfort, who defrauded the system and investors with glee in the '80s and '90s, this unites Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio for the fifth time, but in truth brings little new to the table. It's basically a real-life Wall Street shot in the style of Casino and Goodfellas, complete with an ironic, winking voice-over by the antihero, and plenty of digressions to fit in knowing cutaways and period pop tunes. It is riotous entertainment, and DiCaprio commands the screen as the self-aggrandising and voracious monster Belfort, pill-popping, snorting and fucking his way like a machine through the years. But at three hours it's also far too long for the point it has to make and as Scorsese can churn out this kind of thing in his sleep, you have to ask whether, given such a meaty topic, a black comedy was all that he should have contented himself with making of it.

6/10