welcome back to movie recaps today i
will show you a biographical drama film
from 2013 titled the wolf of wall street
spoilers ahead watch out and take care
the film begins with a lion walking
through a brokerage firm called stratton
oakmont incorporated in what appears to
be an ad for the firm
this short sequence sets the tone for
the rest of the movie especially since
it jumps to the actual office and
brokers we will be seeing throughout
jordan belfort and his office are
celebrating hitting it big on an initial
public offering that will change their
firm forever by betting on little people
they fling across the room on a target
board born in a middle-class family in
queens by the time he was 26 jordan was
making 49 million dollars and already
felt like that wasn't enough at the
height of his career he had a successful
if not dubious firm lived in a mansion
was married to naomi with whom he had
two kids he also had a private jet six
cars three horses two vacation homes and
a yacht all of this was fueled with
excessive drug use alcoholism lovemaking
addiction and pretty much everything
that could give him an adrenaline rush
but of all the drugs on the planet there
was one that was his absolute favorite
money
jumping back to the time when he was 22
and just starting out on wall street we
see him arriving at the firm where he
started his broker career
while treated like pon scum by his
immediate superior he's infatuated by
one of the higher ups mark hannah who
makes much more money than the other guy
and is ready to give jordan a few tips
on wall street high life the stock
market opens and jordan loses his mind
when he sees how the trading floor looks
like hooking him in seconds by the sheer
force of adrenaline caused by money
later hannah takes jordan to lunch and
tells him what he should be focused on
to get his career moving aside from the
drugs and lovemaking that should help
him focus better on the numbers game he
tells him that making money as a broker
isn't about getting his clients rich but
himself
in the vulgar poetry of wall street
money making a broker's job is to sell
his clients dreams while stuffing actual
cash in his own pockets
now young jordan still has a little bit
of a moral issue with that concept but
as we will see he grows out of that
state of mind very fast for the next six
months jordan learns the ins and outs of
the business as he gets ready to get the
license that would allow him to buy and
sell stocks on the market unfortunately
on his first day as a licensed broker
the stock market crashes in what is now
known as black monday leaving him and
many others jobless
it may not look great for him as he sits
down on the dining table with his first
wife looking for another job and talking
money until he finds the only job
listing in the paper calling for stock
brokers considering he knows the state
of the market at that particular moment
in time he's a little bit reluctant as
he goes in for his interview with a
small firm working from a strip mall
however what he learns there about
so-called penny stocks will change his
life forever in more ways than one the
man interviewing him who looks like an
absolute flake compared to his previous
colleagues explains that they only deal
with penny stocks
those are stocks they call pink sheets
that belong to companies that don't have
enough capital and sell for as the name
might suggest pennies
jordan is a bit confused about how the
whole thing works until the man tells
him that he would make a 50 commission
on them as far as the legality of
selling such stocks goes it seems to be
in some kind of gray area that would
work for jordan's benefit until it
doesn't
being a natural-born salesman jordan
quickly realizes that he can make much
more money from the penny stocks by
outward lying to his clients to get more
money out of them and impressing his
co-workers in the process jordan starts
making more money in no time which
catches the eye of one of his neighbors
donnie azoff when donnie learns about
the amount that jordan makes he's
prepared to quit his job on the spot if
jordan hires him jordan takes up on his
offer and their long professional
relationship begins in the diner where
they first meet
donnie is also the first person to
really introduce jordan to drugs
not long after the two of them decide to
go out on their own and start their own
firm so jordan recruits some of the
people he knows that can sell
granted these men were mostly low-tier
drug dealers but jordan was convinced he
can make brokers out of them yet from
the four men that can be seen sitting on
his table the only one with real
salesman chops is brad but he isn't too
interested in working as a broker since
he already has a semi-lucrative business
selling quaaludes as he's trying to
convince these dudes to work for him he
makes them take the ultimate salesman
test by giving them a pen and asking
them to sell it to him brad takes the
pen and immediately understands that
what needs to be done is to create
supply and demand opening the floor for
jordan to teach the others a lesson they
will need a bit of time to learn but
eventually will
apart from dani the men he initially
hires in his firm are robbie alden
chester and rugrat who actually went to
law school they begin to make money but
jordan soon realizes that they can make
even more if he coaches his brokers into
sounding smart enough to be able to sell
stocks to people with actual capital he
reinvents the company into stratton
oakmont and their journey to riches
begins the coaching process takes his
men from being schmucks to proper
salesmen and in no time he's able to
take the company to the next level
furthermore they grow in size very fast
getting them on the radar of forbes
magazine but also the fbi
forbes calls him the wolf of wall street
seeing right through his fake robin hood
game where he takes low-income people
and turns them into cutthroat brokers
only lining their own pockets and most
importantly his own
what the magazine couldn't predict is
that they would make him a superstar and
help his company double in size with
up-and-coming stockbrokers fighting to
get in on his game his firm becomes as
he calls it a madhouse filled with equal
parts drugs testosterone and body fluids
jordan even gets his father to work for
him as a kind of enforcer who'll keep
them from losing their heads completely
in debauchery and expenses
the movie jumps to one of the stat and
oakmont parties where everything in
jordan's life shifts one more time this
party is presented as the all-in-one
game changer for both his professional
and private life
first and foremost we see him absolutely
drowning in his preferred drug quaaludes
or lewds for short he and his buddies
have figured out an entire system to use
it where they can reap all of its
benefits when brainstorming money-making
ideas
in fact the second important thing to
happen at the party is when donnie has
one of those ideas during a drug-induced
creative flow they have going on
he comes up with the name steve madden
an old high school chum of his that has
become an important shoe designer and
he'll come up in the movie again soon
the third important thing to happen
during the party is the moment jordan
meets his second wife naomi and falls
for her instantly they become lovers
even before he divorces his first wife
and carries on with their affair until
she finds out once he hands over the
papers for his divorce though he
instantly moves in with naomi into a
huge apartment at this point in his life
he already starts making some shady
things like having people like brad hold
stock in his name
he called those people rat holes jordan
would drive the price for the stock up
brad would sell it and kick most of the
profits back to jordan all of it in cash
to keep under the radar of the sec or
the securities and exchange commission
he hires an attorney
manny riskin calling him the voice of
doom
meanwhile he treats the sec lawyers
terribly and bugs the office where he
puts them to work to know about anything
they might find suspicious while the sec
combed through his papers he takes the
shares of a company making its first
initial public offering and makes an
illegal move that brings his firm an
incredible amount of money the move is
that when the stock is offered to the
general population jordan's company
makes the initial sales price and sells
those stocks back to their friends
making that amount of money pushes
jordan to live even more extremely so
after he asked naomi to marry him he
kicks off with the kind of life that was
mentioned at the beginning of the movie
jordan has an insane bachelor party in
las vegas that costs him around two
million dollars then has his wedding
with naomi in the bahamas together with
all of his friends and associates at the
wedding he meets naomi's aunt emma that
will play a very important role in his
life a few years down the road as a
wedding gift he buys naomi the already
mentioned yacht where they spend their
honeymoon
after they return to a home which is one
of the most expensive real estates in
the world filled with all kinds of
personnel from maids to landscapers and
two guards that work in shifts
a year and a half later his marriage is
already in a bit of trouble because of
his excessive drug abuse and
ever-progressing love-making needs
meanwhile his professional life was
booming the firm was finally launching
the steve madden ipo to whose company
donnie and jordan already secretly owned
85
that high percentage was all in the
names of jordans and donny's rattles and
legally speaking it was unacceptable but
the both of them were ready to play the
game and get filthy rich from it by
driving the brokers they coached to sell
the stocks like crazy they were doing
such a great job in fact that the fbi's
interest in the company was growing as
fast as the prices of the steve madden
shares
agent denim was already charting their
entire journey in growth as a firm
noticing the levels in which they were
skyrocketing and how fast jordan was
getting richer the money began coming in
fast and so did the calls from the fbi
in their investigation to find all of
jordan's possible associates when jordan
gets a call from the videographer that
shot his wedding informing him that the
fbi has sent them a subpoena for all the
video material jordan panics a little he
talks to one of his counselors a private
investigator who used to be a cop and
finds out everything about denim from
him the pie says that he knows
everything about him and that by making
this last move he's trying to rattle him
into doing something stupid
even though the pie tells him not to
touch the matter and try to communicate
with the agent jordan invites the agent
for a chat on his yacht jordan begins
the conversation smoothly offering denim
an entire list with the names of his
associates but then takes it in another
direction trying to bribe the agent on
his side denim plays his game for a bit
waiting to see how far jordan would go
and what he would say but cuts him off
at the end saying that he isn't
interested in bribes that sends jordan
into a rage in the beginning and then
into a panic as to where and how he
could hide his money from the federal
authorities
fortunately his pal rugrat knew a swiss
banker from his days at law school so he
was able to arrange a meeting for the
two of them in switzerland is it
necessary to state that jordan's drug
problem was getting worse by the day
in fact he would take the entire ride to
europe and elude induced haze and find
himself strapped to his airplane seat
when they arrive in geneva at the bank
rugrat dani and jordan meet with sorel
the banker who for the time being will
be their saving grace
he quickly familiarizes them with swiss
laws on brokerage and gives them a few
hints about some workarounds and
loopholes they might be willing to
consider when it comes to storing money
obtained by stock fraud they would
simply need to use one of jordan's rat
holes that has an eu passport and open
the account in their name making the
account untraceable jordan suddenly
remembers naomi's british aunt emma
since the uk was still in the eu back
then to use as his rat hole for his
money he doesn't have a problem
convincing the woman which seems to have
taken a liking to him for some reason
but since he and dani have an insane
amount of money that needs to be taken
into switzerland in cash and emma
wouldn't be rattle enough for the two of
them they get the idea to use brad's new
wife chantelle who's of slovenian origin
one test trial in the game and they
figure out that it would take her an
obscene amount of time to transfer all
of their money to the swiss bank
so as another solution to the problem
brad elicits the help of chantel's
entire family with slovenian passports
during the planning stage donnie reminds
them that it's not just jordan's money
they have to consider but his as well
he manages to get himself into an
argument with brad who demands he makes
the money drop off somewhere outside and
for donnie to come to the meeting sober
the exchange goes anything but smoothly
with donnie messing with brad and
eventually managing to get the cops on
them as well
because of donnie's stupidity brad gets
arrested and ends up doing three months
in prison for not raiding him out
that night dani freaks out and goes over
to jordan's house with some lemon 714
loot that haven't been in production in
a long time
jordan doesn't pick up on the fact that
donnie wants to get something with them
even though he knows he's been keeping
them for a special occasion
since the drugs are really old 15 years
past their expiration date when they
don't begin working on them immediately
jordan and donnie keep popping the pills
one after the other
unfortunately the only thing not working
about the drug is their release system
which has slowed significantly over the
years so when the loots hit the two men
they hit them hard
jordan gets the high from the drug right
in the middle of a conversation with his
pie who tells him that all of his phones
are bugged he barely manages to get home
after naomi calls him to say that donnie
isn't doing well and is talking to sorel
on the phone
when jordan arrives hardly walking he
struggles to get donny off the phone and
the moment he does dani starts choking
jordan saves him from dying on his
living room floor with a little help
from one of his other favorite drugs the
next day jordan gets arrested for
driving his car in his doped up state
thankfully he didn't kill himself or
someone else on the road
sometime later since jordan is under
constant supervision by everyone riskin
advises him to cut a deal with the sec
and step down from his position in the
firm leaving it for donny to run he
tells jordan to plead guilty for a few
things and pay a few fines so the sec
leaves him alone for good while the fbi
won't drop their charges about the steve
madden case if everything else is
resolved in the manner in which risk and
proposes they won't be able to do much
about them
jordan's dad advises him to take the
deal and save his skin before it's too
late jordan initially agrees to it but
once he's back in the office and sees
all of his employees he changes his mind
everyone cheers for him and proves to be
extremely loyal when the fbi comes
knocking on their door sometime later no
one gives the fbi any information about
the steve madden ipo and stalls the
agents during the investigation which
jordan calls harassment meanwhile even
though jordan and donnie were advised
not to leave the country they decide to
take their business with them and run it
from italy
not long after rugrat calls them to say
that steve madden is dumping all of his
shares jordan freaks out because most of
the shares he owns of the company are in
steve madden's name so he tells rugrat
to make everyone else sell their shares
too so they can drive the price down and
reduce the company stocks to penny
stocks to make matters worse for him and
emma dies in her account would be
permanently locked if he doesn't go to
switzerland to take it over on their way
to monaco from where they would go to
switzerland the young gets into some
trouble and they almost sank
fortunately the italian coast guard
saves jordan donnie and their families
from dying but that doesn't stop all the
other problems from coming in the
preceding two years jordan gets his act
together becomes sober and becomes a tv
personality but the fbi still manages to
build a case against him and arrest him
it appears that rugrat and sorel were
arrested on u.s soil because the banker
had some other shady stuff going on the
side but he gave up jordan to save his
own skin with the feds jordan gets
criminal charges brought up against him
for everything ranging from money
laundering to obstruction of justice and
gets remanded in his home after he pays
his bail in the following period of his
life he stands to lose everything
material in his life but also his wife
and kids donnie promises to help him
with the financial side of things so
when the fbi asks him to rat out donny
and the rest of his crew he refuses the
moment things start going downhill with
naomi and he relapses with his drug use
jordan realizes that he needs to change
his tune if he wants to hold on to
something in his life
the second offer for cooperation with
the fbi he takes with a heavy heart but
with some pragmatism in him left jordan
goes back to the office while wearing a
wire to get something out of donny but
he can't go through with it he gives
donnie a note that he's wearing a wire
and doesn't insist on the illegal
aspects of their operation in their
conversation
unfortunately donnie now knows that the
feds are after him too so he uses that
same note to rat on jordan and make some
ends with the fbi for his own crimes
so without wanting to do it in the first
place jordan still has to give up
everyone after he's arrested and in
return he gets a short sentence of three
years in a small jail in nevada when he
gets out of jail he continues with a
career coaching others how to become
better salesmen while selling them the
dream of making it big in return the
movie ends with jordan passing a pen to
someone at one of his seminars asking
him to sell in that pen
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