The Wolf of Wall Street, (mostly) in gifs (NSFW, spoilers)

Apparently, Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker had trouble bringing WOWS down to a measly 3 hours playing time. For a nominal fee, I offer my services.

First, Leo was a young 'un.

Then, he became an ambitious young man, married to the one from How I Met Your Mother.

Then he meets the Lincoln Lawyer/Killer Joe/Mud, who mentors Leo and advises him to masturbate more frequently.

Unfortunately, Leo loses his job and the market crashes. [Couldn't find a gif, so here's a picture of a trader looking sad]

Our man decides to get a job peddling crap stocks.

This goes very well. He gains a fan. With teeth like a hydroelectric dam.

Leo and Jonah then put together a crack team of business partners (mostly recruited from the Society for the Enjoyment of Bad Ties).

This also goes well. Leo does a Bollywood dance number with a Hollywood touch (cocaine + boat).

Meanwhile, Kyle Chandler, the guy who always plays a civil servant (ZeroDarkThirty, Broken City, Argo) shows up as, you guessed it, a civil servant, this time at the SEC (that's the FBI of money). Because, you know, an American film without a law enforcement official is like a rapper without a gold tooth. At this point, you might ask what Leo's done that's actually illegal - apart from rampant sexing and snorting. Well, they artificially inflated prices of junk stocks and then sold them to unsuspecting investors. More detail in review, to follow.

The Man decides to investigate Leo and visits his boat. Leo responds thusly:

And then:

Later, this happens.

Or more accurately, Margot Robbie / Naomi happens. So Leo gets divorced with the one from HIMYM as she finds out [atleast Leo seems kind of bummed out about it]. By the way, Leo's killer pick-up line? "Do you like to jetski?" Take notes, gents.

They get married (and eventually have 2 kids, who clearly have no chance at all of growing up to be normal). At the wedding, we are treated to one of the most significant moments in humanity's cultural history:

I know we will all remember what we were doing and where we were when we saw this. Anyway, alongside all this, which may be considered "story", we also have an unbelievably obscene amount of, er, scene-setting. Subplots abound, including an-in-no-way-strange conversation between Leo and his dad (Rob Reiner, naturally) about (a) how dad regrets being born too early to enjoy women with fully shaven genitalia because, y'know?! And even more pointlessly, (b) why Leo blew $430,000 in one month on "client meetings" [I can't quite remember, but I think this includes the party where Leo "double-teamed" the office secretary with one of the other schmucks in the company].

DRUGS!!

A lot of this

Unnecessary subplot # 1,000, involving a gay butler who stole stuff

Putz.

Aww, selling obviously crap stocks to hardworking, ordinary people and
 then spending the proceeds on drugs and prostitutes. The loveable rogues!

Oh, that's ok then.

Also some of this.

And this.

My special instincts tell me that Leo/Jordan likes money.

It's worth pointing out that after all this, we still haven't hit the 2-hour mark of this 3-hour movie. Strap in.

So everybody's favourite whoring, snorting broker finds himself securing the IPO (first ever listing on a stockmarket, and if the company does well, "$$$,$$$,$$$") of hot property Steve Madden (played by Dustin Hoffman's boy, Jake).

Some applause please for Jonah Hill, who seems to have perfected the art of playing a goofy bastard. Then we get arguably the best part of the film, when Leo and Jonah go on a junket to Switzerland to hide ill-gotten gains. The following happens on the flight to Europe, thanks to some "quaals".

But enough fun and games. In Switzerland, Leo suddenly looks composed, and finds a man entirely on his own wavelength. So much so that no words are exchanged.

  

Oh, I forgot to say. Joanna Lumley, who is related to Margot, becomes the beneficiary so Leo can keep his name off the illegal money (also, she's British and so cannot be compelled to testify by American authorities). Cue obligatory "American in England" scene.

Then, in an absolutely off-piste scene, Jonah/Donnie needles one of Leo's associates and old school friends, aka Shane from The Walking Dead, needlessly, about a variety of things. This results in a fight. 

The Police happen upon this scene and Brad gets captured, with Jonah/Donnie getting away. Eventually, Brad opts to go to jail rather than rat out Leo and Jonah. Legend! He gets what he deserves at the end:

So naturally, Jonah pumps Leo full of quaals before telling him the bad news. However, the quaals happen to be 15 years old and so Leo & Jonah take a lot of them. Then they hang out at the gym. Suddenly, Leo gets a call from his lawyer, telling him to go to a payphone. 

Turns out the FBI has put in a wiretap in Leo's home. So it's vital that no incriminating phonecalls go out from there. But of course, Donnie, that beacon of discretion, is still there. Then the quaals hit. Leo desperately tries to get home, in an absolutely fantastic scene.

Just another day at the office for Leo these days. Turns out these quaals pack a punch and taking too many of them make you lose almost all motor functions. Somehow, Leo drives back home, "without a scratch on the car". What follows is another brilliant scene, this time a vigorous groping/pulling/fighting scene, between a "cerebral palsy stage" (his own words) Leo/Jordan and Jonah. Turns out Jonah was on the phone to Jean du Jardin (Saurel, our favourite Swiss banker). Uhoh.

Times like this, you wish there was cheap cutlery around.

Somewhere in the midst of this, poor ol' Donnie starts to choke on a piece of ham. Leo suddenly gets inspired by seeing Popeye on TV (which his kids had been watching) and uses cocaine to counteract the depressant effect of the quaals.

Cocaine saves the day. Yay!

Phew...disaster averted. Everybody gets to go home.

Anyway, We're getting there, so hold on. Half an hour to go. Rob Reiner/Jordan's dad tries to get Leo to step down at "Stratton Oakmont" (a name that screams class), and Leo goes almost all the way, but somehow during his farewell speech, which is oddly sentimental and melodramatic after 2.5 hours of drug-taking, sex and cold-hearted debauchery, CHANGES HIS MIND. His speech can be summed up as "HATAZ GON' HATE, BUT PLAYAS GON' PLAY". Also, this. 

So. Leo's back in the game! Isn't it heart-warming that those hacks in the FBI and media couldn't force out a good, honest man like Jordan Belfort? Anyway, Jordan, Naomi/Robbie Margot, Donnie and his long-suffering wife Hildy, go to Italy aboard the good ship "Naomi". Before we go any further, let us remember an example of why Hildy is so long-suffering.

See if you can spot Jonah Hill's dinghy in the last one. So anyway, turns out, poor Joanna Lumley/Naomi's aunt, has died. This leaves the assets in the Swiss bank "intestate". Or something. So naturally, Leo needs to run to Swissland. But Naomi wants to go bury her poor aunt. What to do?

Leo gets his way and they decide to go to London after. However, Leo's brash insistence on leaving straightaway (the Captain doesn't seem to put up much resistance) causes them problems: the boat nearly capsizes. But atleast Leo's got his priorities right.

The plane sent to fetch them crashes and burns due to a bird in the engine. In a strange turn for such a cold, ruthless man, Leo takes this as a sign from god that he should turn over a new leaf, which he does. And of course, that's when he "gets got". Two years later, our favourite Swiss banker, Monsieur Saurel, gets arrested on some prostitution beef (I think) and spills the beans on the whole operation. By this time, Leo has left the stockbroking business and is now in the safe business of teaching other people to be like him. We catch up with him in a delightfully 90s infomercial. Try the Youtube video of the actual filming of the scene.

Filming of WOWS

After this, Leo agrees to wear a wire and try to incriminate his colleagues. When Leo gets home to tell his wife this, she responds by telling him that she wants a divorce. Leo then tries to run off with his 2nd child, a toddler, but not before punching Naomi in the stomach, as she tries to stop him.

The next day, Leo waltzes into his office wearing a wire, but slips Jonah/Donnie a note telling him about it. Everybody else gets arrested. Kyle Chandler/Agent Dunham finds out about the note and Leo goes to jail for 3 years. When he gets out, he starts touring New Zealand, selling sales techniques.

So there you have it, a journey from "a middle class son of accountants" to nationally famous rogue of Wall Street. And wife-beater. And absconder-with-daughter. Finally: I leave you with 2 images from WOWS that subtly tell you what WOWS is about. I'm off to go clean myself with industrial-strength soap.