Martin Scorsese
2013
180 minutes
Oh boy, you haven't been looking forward to this one. This is yet another Scorsese film that was semi-ruined by fanboys who like it for all the wrong reasons. You've been out and about on weekends in New York City enough to have a natural disgust for the finance bros who see films like this as aspirational. Simply some of the worst human beings on the face of the earth. That alone was enough reason to avoid this film like the plague when it came out, even if it supposedly vilifies them.
If there's anything the politics of the last ten years has taught you, there's no behavior by rich people that is so vile that there isn't some rich-person wannabe standing by eager to emulate it. You got a mild taste of this in your career as a software developer and software engineer. Thankfully your immediate workplace wasn't too heavily steeped in "tech-bro" culture, but you had more than enough exposure to hate anything that reeked of that peculiar fraternity. Your premature distaste for Elon Musk's charming antics put you solidly in the minority in your workplace.
It's a real struggle not to hate this film. You at least like Leonardo DiCaprio, which makes it slightly easier to choke this down. You respect Margot Robbie as well, but in the most vulgar sense her primary role in this is to act as a full-frontal nudity plot driving reward of the main character's financial success. Margot Robbie isn't really your "type", but she's also Barbie-gorgeous enough that in some sense she's at least a bit everyone's "type", and you're no exception to the rule. No shame there. And as an actress she seems to be pretty sharp, so don't go begrudging her good looks.
There's a sort of dim anarchistic joy about watching these men behave badly, with coke and booze and hookers and gleefully thumbing their noses at rules and regulations while breaking the law. It's kind of a party for slobs and nerds and degenerates. There's something a little bit Animal House to the whole affair. But there's also a pretty quick way to erase this glee and turn it into more of a horror story by adding one simple accessory. Imagine all these party animals wearing bright red MAGA hats while openly flouting the laws that can barely touch them. Kinda ruins the whole thing, right?
Have fun.
Time to choose something different: