The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street is the unofficial sequel to Super Fly, which ends on an image of the antenna top of a New York skyscraper against a garish blue sky. The implication of this ending is that the promise of economic prosperity is a heroin needle wielded by the rich against the poor: addictive, dangerous, blinding, and ultimately empty. But the shot also implies that the ones in the top of that skyscraper, the wealthiest of all, get to experience the biggest and most euphoric high of all, the high of limitless money spent freely and without repercussion.

It’s just this sort of high that allows Jordan Belfort & Co. to abuse substances so fearlessly and attractively, running and giggling through suburban streets after smoking crack. It’s a funny scene, as are the many others in this film that show us a bunch of puerile white men getting away with all sorts of twisted shit. Perhaps this is the movie’s point, to demonstrate how it is that executives and CEOs are able to successfully swindle and with a smile—that is, through branding themselves as partiers with hearts of gold, writing $25,000 checks to the Kimmy Beltzers of the world. Or perhaps The Wolf of Wall Street rather mindlessly performs the same trick, getting us to laugh so hard that we barely notice that the only black characters are hired help or that the police make sure the camera gets shut the fuck off when they make an arrest.