Coke!  Ludes!  Booze!  No, it’s not the yearly Geek for e holiday party.  It’s a slice of the 90s stockbroker lifestyle highlighted in The Wolf of Wall Street, and it’s it’s tacky, glorious excess carries on for almost three hours of hyperactive money-binging and awe-inspiring overindulgence.  The Wolf of Wall Street, with it’s beautiful views and addictive storyline will make you sad that you missed the party, and truly happy that you did.  Because really, unless Martin Scorsese is directing your life as brilliantly as he does this film — and you’ve got a guy editing the crap parts out — anyone who really lived like that back then?  Has great stories no doubt, but probably no longer has the use of all his/her faculties.  Hey, you give some you get some I guess.  But it’s a better idea to simply watch this stunner of a film and leave the real excess to folks that don’t mind the body busting (and jail time.)

The one thing you’ll need to know before, during and after this film?  That this story is true.  The details?  Maybe a little fudged, a bit blown up for Hollywood.  But Jordan Belfort , his partner Danny Porush and their “firm” Stratton Oakmont are all the real deal.  Remember the 1987 film Wall Street?  This real-life story makes Gordon Gekko and his cronies look like altar boys.  No wonder Leonardo “King of the World” DiCaprio wanted to play Belfort.  It’s a role any actor wanting to go a little crazy would kill to play.

And Belfort was definitely a character.  A guy trying to make it as a stockbroker on Wall Street when the big crash of ‘87 hit, leaving him with no job and a ton of ambition.  So he stumbles onto the idea of “Penny Stocks”, dirt-cheap stocks that could be driven up in price, and then sold quickly for a profit.  Problem?  The sellers bought chunks of those stocks, and when there was profit to be had, they sold ‘em, which drove the prices back down.  Not a problem if you got in at the start, but for folks that were trying to ride those prices higher?  Well, they lost a bundle.  About 200 million, in fact.

But the folks selling made a bundle.  So much money that these people didn’t know what to do with it all.  So?  They put it up their nose, into their bloodstream.  They blew 20-30K on a single dinner out.  They bought jet planes, huge yachts and even bigger mansions.  They also courted the interest of the SEC and the FBI, as you’d expect.  The Wolf of Wall Street gets into the nitty-gritty of getting busted for doing wrong, but really focuses on what these fraudsters did before they got busted.  And it’s a glorious music video of excess.  Midget tossing — oh yeah, this film goes there — to celebrate the end of the week.  That’s an office function y’all.  Director Martin Scorsese digs into the life and times of these people and delivers a genuinely entertaining film that makes you laugh just as much as it horrifies you.  The man has a brilliant way of showing the attractions the seedy side of life often has.  As Wall Street execs, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Matthew McConaughey (still looking a bit Dallas Buyers Club skinny) bring to life brokers that have no problem focusing on the money they’re investing and forgetting about the people behind those transactions.

How did the brokers do it?  This film shows you how, and why.  Basically?  Give ‘em a charismatic leader and things will go nuts.  And Belfort was definitely that charismatic leader.  DiCaprio, in the darker side of Gatsby, plays Belfort as a man possessed.  This Belfort is a man who has achieved more than he ever dreamed of, and gets swept away in it all.  Get hyped to sell, get stoned to come down from your day at work.  Take a yacht trip that ends up looking like a WASP-y rendition of a high-toned MTV video, because hey; yachts are what real rich people have!  Let’s do this!

As the even crazier side of the coin, Jonah Hill plays “Donnie Azoff” (a thinly veiled Danny Porush, as Porush threatened to sue if he was portrayed in the film).  Azoff is a man who always wanted to be on top, and when he gets there?  It’s Katie-bar-the-door.  He’s shown as the man who introduces Belfort to drugs and a life of extreme excess.  The slow-mo “how ‘ludes work” scene is absolutely priceless, and just a hint at the laugh-out-loud humor to come in the film.  Hill sinks his teeth into the role, and there’s no place he won’t go for a laugh.  (Though folks who have seen This Is The End know that already.)

Cutting between the main story and brief flashbacks to flesh out the tales these guys are telling makes the near-3-hour film speed by.  Wolf shows excess, idiots and tons of people with more dollars than sense, and how they screw themselves over by getting too deep into their own hype.  As the SEC and FBI close in (including a wonderfully deadpan Kyle Chandler as an FBI agent dead-set on busting them all), there are several times when Belfort can end things and walk away.  But money and power are too intoxicating (and he was probably too plain-ol’ intoxicated) to pass by.  Then there’s that sense of family, the early moments of doing right by the employees.  That buys loyalty and more still?  Hope.  Scorsese shows all that too, so when the big bust goes down, I almost felt sorry for the folks getting cuffed.  But not too sorry; in real life Belfort is now a motivational speaker raking in the dough.

This movie could have just as easily been called Inmates Running The Asylum, or Good Drugs Bad Choices.  But the real theme here is that no matter what happens, there will always be people that are filled with the hope of becoming more than they’re able to be.  And to answer those hopes, The Wolf of Wall Street will be knocking at the door.  This film makes it tough to decide if you could keep from answering.