Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
The Wolf of Wall Street is the story of Jordan Belfort, a New York City stockbroker who, during the late 1980s and 1990s, committed rampant fraud through his brokerage house Stratton Oakmont. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s one of the best films of both this decade and the illustrious auteur’s career, a hilarious and shocking black comedy about the limitless depths of human greed and the insane corruption that dominates the American financial sector.
And in a twist of jaw-dropping irony, the film itself is an example of the very wretched thing it depicts.
Premiering at DOC NYC on Friday, November 9, Sam Hobkinson’s The Kleptocrats is an eye-opening peek at the global embezzlement and money-laundering scandal that helped give birth to The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s a true-life tale of leaders putting themselves above their constituents, of wannabe big shots reveling in their astounding ill-gotten gains, and of investigative journalists driven to bring covert crimes to light. Moreover, it’s a snapshot of the shadier side of stratospheric celebrity life, given that it involves not only DiCaprio and Scorsese, but also the likes of Paris Hilton, Kanye West, Jamie Foxx and Robert De Niro—the last of whom, at one point, responds to pointed questions from The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Ritman by telling him, “Yeah, well, I don’t fucking appreciate it, excuse me. Get the fuck outta here. Goodbye.”
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