The Wolf of Wall Street

With his vices far outweighing his virtues, Jordan Belfort is an easy character to hate. Yet his charismatic bad-boy image and his persuasive nature made him alluring to endless imitators and wannabes during the height of his success.

Belfort’s true-life rise and fall in the world of high finance during the 1990s is chronicled in The Wolf of Wall Street, a vigorously stylish epic from director Martin Scorsese that’s almost as difficult to watch as it is to look away.

Belfort is played with ferocious intensity by Scorsese’s frequent collaborator, Leonardo DiCaprio, conveying the greed and arrogance of a subject who makes Gordon Gekko seem like Gandhi. It’s an audacious performance that’s edgy without turning reckless or morally corrupt.

The film shows Belfort’s ups and downs in graphic and often comedic detail, from his start during the stock market crash of 1987 to the subsequent founding of his own small firm with a neighbor (Jonah Hill) who becomes his most trusted confidant.

Belfort uses shady tactics to rise quickly in the financial world, giving him fame and fortune that he uses to secure a trophy wife, a severe addiction to drugs and material possessions, and the attention of the FBI, leading to a securities investigation that brings him down, but not without a fight.

The screenplay by Terence Winter (TV’s “The Sopranos”), based on Belfort’s autobiography, effectively explains the ins and outs of the financial world — from penny stocks to hedge funds — without feeling like a lecture from an entry-level economics class.

The film loses focus on occasion and fails to place Belfort’s story in much of a broader context, yet there are so many memorable sequences that it hardly matters by the end. Matthew McConaughey’s small role as Belfort’s mentor yields a terrific speech, and an extended scene involving an overdose on Quaaludes is both hilarious and harrowing.

Belfort enjoys the spotlight in both thoughts and actions, as reflected in the film’s pervasive narration. His is not a story of redemption or sympathy, yet it carries some contemporary resonance within the current economic climate.

With all of its brash indulgence and macho posturing, mostly conducted at a high volume and a breakneck pace, the cumulative effect of The Wolf of Wall Street can be emotionally exhausting. But even if you don’t get the same financial windfall as Belfort, you feel richer for the experience.

Rated R, 179 minutes.