A great story, under two different approaches, result differently.
This article is nowhere near to an in-depth critics; in fact, I would rather regard it as a collection of my thoughts about The Wolf of Wall Street, which is by far one of the most well-known stories of Wall Street – the real Shark Tank of the U.S.A.
Like many others, I have seen the movie featuring Leonardo Dicaprio as Jordan Belfort, as well as the book written by Jordan Belfort himself. Thus, it’s adequate for me to draw a small comparison between these two blockbusters, thus having a closer look, how different they are from each other. I just do it for self-entertaining purpose, and I’d like to make it clear that I admire them both, because the makers had done a great job, bringing this scandalous incident to the public’s eyes, with such an easy way for everyone to catch up the complex financial scheme in the story.
*The article will spoil the whole content of the book/movie.
#1: Jordan Belfort and his back
There is no complaints regarding Leo’s role as Jordan Belfort – he has done a life-time movie, recreated JB in such accurate manner that the real JB has nothing to be upset about: A young MA Graduate with a top-level sales skills, thriving to be rich at Wall Street, and became the Wolf, leading his Strattonites to conquer the penny stock market, and technically messing up many firms by their stock fraudulent schemes for almost 10 years of operation.
The movie also described undisputedly, how crazy was the brokers’ life, with drugs, parties, hookers, and all forms of overspendings. If the audiences have been shocked with what the movie depicted, then believe me, it’s more or less the same to the book’s.
However, there was an important point that the movie somehow neglected: Jordan’s terrible back illness. He appeared in movie to have transformed rapidly, from an innocent young man to a heavy stone-headed junky. The environment could have caused it, yes. But Jordan is a smart guy, some of the best at Wall Street, with a loving family, so environment was not enough. In fact, he also suffered from a terrible back illness for years, took four surgeries to fight back. He described “the only moment I feel ok are the first two minutes after I wake up in the morning”. To fight back this horror anguish, JB got dependent on high-dose drugs, like Quaaludes (Ludes), Xanax, Morphine, you name it, and eventually, cocaine. This is where JB started to lose it all: his company, friends, and family, having 3 months of sleepless nights, snorting cocaine by both nostrils, then heading to the worst parts.
#2: The clash with FBI
The moment mentioned above, or technically, any actual contact between JB and agent Coleman – who spent years hunting down the Wolf, was not exist.
JB was a smart man, and through his advisor Bo, he knew the last thing to do was to “wire an FBI agent, try to bribe an FBI agent, or to talk to one at all”.
For me, the scene when Jordan invited agent Coleman on his yatch and tried to bribe this agent (in movie) was not logical at all, regarding that he was not in big threat at that point. In the book, the first and only time they met was in the late 90s, many years after Jordan had given up Stratton Oakmont, and got arrested at his house, when he was about to take Chandler – his daughter – to see a movie.
#3: What actually happened to Stratton Oakmont
Stratton Oakmont was an Over The Counter (OTC) brokerage firm, where the Strattonites would “rip the customers’ eyeballs off” so as to sell stocks. And in a nutshell, was they illegally did was this: They first waited for the Initial Public Offering (IPO) from company A, set the price, then contacted and persuaded the investors that A’s stocks are going to be beneficial. When the investors’ money came and increased the value of company A’s stocks to a certain points, Stratton will then buy back stocks (reserved before) from their partners in crime, thus reducing stocks’ value. Overnight, Stratton and their partners will gain the investors’ money, and investors lose theirs.
After being found out, Startton faced many “enemies”: SEC, NASDAQ, and FBI. With such pressure, the leader – Jordan Belfort – had to resign. But once again, in the movie, he did an unrealistic thing: to stay and swear to “fight back” the authorities. This can enhance viewers’ emotion when watching the scene, but it’s irrational when it comes to economy.
In fact, JB agreed to give over his power at Stratton to Danny (depicted in movie as Donnie and “Rugrat”), while still advising him remotely. This couldn’t save Stratton from diving deeper in crisis, as they later on faced too much pressure from the authorities, having employees taken by other brokerage firms, and consequently closed down.
#4: JB’s friends
Almost being coke-head and crazy as Jordan are, the founders of Stratton – his gang, wasn’t all idiots. Depicted in the movie, Donnie used to work as a toy saler, also a weird guy. But in the book, Danny was Belfort’s most trusted friend, and took part in most of his big deals. The same thing for Todd Garret. Rugrat, and others.
After Jordan got caught and agreed to rat his contacts (to “cooperate” with FBI), the rest of his friends did the same, and they all received light-weighted sentences, maximum 10 years in prison.
#5: The Duchess of Bayridge
Now, this is where I disagreed the most with the movie.
I meant, seriously, how did the movie describe her?
A lady who has a boyfriend already, met for the first time, and decided to dump her man and come to JB. She then lived a luxurious life, always get mad at Jordan, and eventually left JB because of his drug addicts.
I wouldn’t say Margot did a bad job – in contrast, she has done an amazing work, being the “luscious Duchess” with her “British accent, long legs, blue eyes, and loamy loins”. But her role didn’t have the weight it deserves.
According to the book, Nadine is also a loving wife who takes care of Jordan and their children. Jordan can get laid with many girls – as all his friends are – but never have feelings with another girl but his Duchess. And, an important of the Wolf’s story that wasn’t mentioned in the movie, was when Nadine gave birth to their second son – Carter Belfort, who was born with holes in his heart, and barely made it out alive. Being traumatized by this, plus Jordan having his most painful surgery and then got addicted to cocaine, Nadine was desperate. Then the incident took place when the coked-head Jordan kicked her on the staircase and took his daughter away like a maniac. After that, Nadine did everything to help her husband: hiring the best interventionists from the West Coast, taking Belfort to rehab, trying to take back the best of him. All of those resulted in Nadine got depressed, and even years later, she still afraid of Jordan, even though he has always been sober since. To this point when he was finally arrested by FBI, she filed her divorce.
Eventually, they all led to the divorce between Jordan-Nadine, but I believe she deserved a better reason and background in the movie’s story.
In short
Regardless of many facts from the movie that I found irrational and over-dramatized, I still love it, as a entertaining and logical movie, in which you can learn a bit about finance, in a simple explanation. And once again, the actors/actresses have done a great job participating in the motion picture of this century, with The Wolf of Wall Street.
So, what happened at the end? After being sentenced to jail, Jordan became an author, also a stock-adviser. He still maintains good relationship with his ex-wife, who is now happily re-married. I guess after such crazy life, peace is now how his story ends.
Khanh Tr.
moink20.com 