Counting Down The Fourteen Best Films Of 2014
In this totally subjective game of lists, there can only be one winner.
#12: The Wolf of Wall Street, dir. Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese perfectly translates the exuberant self-delusion of Jordan Belfort’s amoral memoir. A mood of delirious glee pervades this bloated, oversaturated and yet completely hilarious and charming film. Like its criminal protagonist, it aggressively sets out to sell something worthless, and succeeds.
Leonardo DiCaprio gives a tremendously committed performance. That famous sequence in which Jordan grovels to his Lamborghini like a drug-fucked worm (and then drives home) is slapstick magic, and Scorsese plays with perspective and framing to underline the gulf between perception and reality.