Customer Reviews

Wolves of Wall Street

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

As a fan of David Decocteaus films The Brotherhood trilogy, Voodoo Academy and others I was very excited to see Wolves of Wall Street. However, I was very disappointed. Everything that made the previous films so campy and great are completely gone. This film takes itself way to seriously. It's about a young man who gets a job on Wall Street and then is turned into a werewolf, but we never get to see any werewolves. They all remain in human form acting like werewolves. Theres no blood, no scares, nothing. There's only one scene with guys in their underwear which David has made his trademark in all of his previous films. The only thing that it has going for it is the acting. The acting is by far the best of his films, thanks in part to Elisa Donavan from Clueless and Sabrina and Eric Roberts, an acadmey award nominated actor.

I liked the concept about a pack of wolves being money hungry on Wall Street.

that's about where my enjoyment for this movie begins and ends.

Other than that, there were no real werewolves in this film. The acting was bad enough. Eric Roberts didn't do too bad, but that's about it. The plot could have been better and it had a stupid ending... really stupid ending.

And the homoerotica was just lame. I've seen just about all of David Decoteau's films and in all honesty, I'm never expecting much, except a bunch of pretty boys prancing around in their undies. But I will say this, if you're going to continue to make movies with homoerotic undertones, then be bold for once and actually have gay characters in your movies! Show a man/man kiss for a change.

When pretty boy Jeff, decides to move to New York to get a job on Wall Street, he is shocked and amazed when he hits the big time and gets a job at Wolfe Brothers. Wolfe Brothers, ran by charismatic Dyson, seems like a dream job...Or is it...? His boss seems to have some unusual habits... Well, aside from urinating off of buildings he seems like a perfectly normal boss to me, (Grin). LOL. Things get strange, when Dyson begins hitting on his girlfriend, and the pack decides to make Jeff one of THEM. Can Jeff make it out alive? Or is he destined to be, just one of the pack.

I liked this film a great deal. Especially the first part. I thought the ending was a little bad, (I love how the werewolves just stand around to be killed), and I felt that Jeff was a bit of a jerk to the pack alpha, whom I felt was a fairly nice guy for a monster.

I would've reworked the ending differently, perhaps having Jeff go on the run or ran the pack or something. The ending seemed rushed and made no real sense.

Peeves? I was kind of bored at the beginning but this film really picks up. Rated R for nudity, sex, and violence.

I'm a film fanatic and must admit to a certain level of snobbery when viewing and evaluating most work. However, I've been known to make exceptions when certain filmmakers present their work as pure kitsch or camp and nothing more. Typically that has been the case with David Decocteau, whose Voodo Academy, Leeches and the Brotherhood are classic examples of kitsch at its best. His plots are generally vacuous vehicles for soft-core homoeroticism that I've found quite entertaining. In fact, Decocteau has developed something of a cult following for his lingering shots of half nude young males who are traditionally quite beautiful and are generally in foreboding predicaments of various sorts. Heterosexual directors have done this for years with beautiful young actresses. It's nice to see the tables turned on men for once. I like the idea of men being objectified. Anyway, this has been the signature of David Decocteau.

With the Wolves of Wall Street he is trying to go "legit" and mimic what the straight directors are doing. The general orientation of the film is heterosexual. Unfortunately, he has failed miserably in crafting anything near a good film. His storyline is derivative, there are no special werewolf effects to speak of (in fact, the so-called werewolves act more like vampires in that they suck blood from the necks of their victims - an identity crisis much like this film) and the general demeanor of the film is flat. And, I disagree with one reviewer who said the only redeeming quality of the film is its actors. I felt they were all terrible, including Eric Roberts, who is not known in Hollywood circles as a particularly respectable thesbian.

I just received a mail ordered copy of the film on DVD. I plan on unloading it immediately. I highly recommend that you avoid this one at all costs!

When the handsome young stock brokers started taking off their clothes, stripped down to their tight black shorts, and crawled on their knees with their hard bodies and bulbous rears well exposed, I knew I was watching a David DeCoteau film. The fact that it wasn't a film just short of being soft core gay porn didn't confuse me in the slightest. The scene made no sense, and DeCoteau finds the strangest reasons to strip his boys down into their underwear.

I will admit that the inclusion of Eric Roberts had me wondering, but all I really wondered was: WHY? He couldn't have been that desperate for money. He's still acting. Maybe he isn't making the kind of money his sister is, but still...the guy's earning a decent living.

Regardless, this movie had the stench of horror written all over it - and not the good kind of horror. The climax was so silly I was...well I repeate myself here...laughing. Seriously, you have to see it to believe it.

Thank goodness for "On-Demand" from your local cable carriers, I suppose. I never would have seen this "gem" otherwise.

Having read the previous reviews before seeing the film, I was pleasantly surprised that there was still a similar level of homoeroticism in this film as in the other films of the Director.

This film is worthwhile just to see Bradley Stryker again.

I do wish the Director would have alternate endings to his films, so that the "bad guys" don't always lose at the end.

Greed is the ultimate theme of this film, and horror (with a slice of homoeroticism) director David DeCoteau realizes this early on and decides to build a film without the costumed monsters of the normal horror genre, but instead with suit wearing professionals that look and act just like you or I. He brings this essence of realism into the film by never quite giving us the werewolf, but showing us how too much power, money, and corruption can "transform" a person just like the classic werewolf. I felt several times that I was watching a rendition of a "wolf in sheep's clothing" because we never actually see the wolves, instead we are shown the corporate suits that seem just like you and I. While DeCoteau does a great job of building the issue that greed is bad, he completely misses the target known as story. I can honestly say that this film has none to speak of.

To build a good story you must first have a solid foundation. In this film there were two foundations, Jeff Allen and the Wolfe Brothers. With these two focal points firmly placed, DeCoteau attempts to build a frame and put siding on his story, but ultimately fails. After consistently unfunny "wolf" jokes, DeCoteau uses the simple technique of flashback to give us the (sorry for the pun) meat of the story. Those points that we missed because Allen was "blacking out" are shown in random, sporadic, and chaotic flash points. Most of them are hard to follow and show either too much or too little of the story. After the first set of these flashbacks, I just didn't care anymore. For this film to truly succeed, I think that it needed a linear story for the audience to follow instead of random crumbs littering the floor. This would have helped to build a stronger main character, a stronger relationship between Allen and Annabella (to explain the ending), and more sinister villains ... if you can call them that. The technique was ok for the first time, but only added to a film that was quickly loosing momentum.

So, we had a failing story, what else went wrong with this film? Outside of Eric Roberts, which seemed like he was in a world all his own, there just seemed to be unanswered questions littering the open spaces of the film. Annabella's ex-boyfriend's death seemed to be a fly in the pan, while her meeting with Dyson (Roberts) left me questioning her loyalty. Who, or what, were these men anyway? Were they cannibals or werewolves? I would assume by the title of this film, Wolves of Wall Street, that it would be a simple answer. I was wrong. Even with the monotonous "wolf" innuendo, I couldn't quite guess. I think the trouble that I was having was the full moon science. How could there have been a full moon every night? I know that it couldn't have been every night, but it felt like it during this film. Perhaps if DeCoteau would have focused a bit more on the science of this film (perhaps watch a couple werewolf films) and less on his male actors removing their shirts in unison revealing their heavily muscled bodies, we could have had a better film. But, I am no director, so what am I to say.

Speaking of the actors, Eric Roberts went above and beyond for this film. It impresses me that he puts so much emphasis on these little films, especially knowing whom his little sister is, and by placing this emphasis he carries this film on his shoulders. This isn't hard considering whom he is working with. The actor who plays Jeff Allen, Mr. William Gregory Lee, looked like he was acting his way through this film. You could literally see the Drama 101 seeping from his sweat, and it was embarrassing. The rest of the wolves...sorry...brokers were basically eye candy for the women whose husbands picked this film up after every copy of Mona Lisa Smile was gone. Nobody helped bring this film to the next level except for Mr. Roberts. The rest were pure dribble.

Finally, I would like to add that if I pay my money to see a horror film, I would actually like to see some horror. There was literally no blood in this film. You would think that with a box showing men with shadows of wolves walking down the street, blood would be second nature. This is not true. It isn't until the end that you actually see blood for the first time, and by then it is so quick (or you are so bored) that it doesn't matter. I needed some scares, some moments of genuine fright, some ... dare I say it ... horror for this film to work. Instead what I found were cheap actors, horrible editing with crappy flashbacks, and no actual horror as far as the eye can see.

Overall, it was a disappointment. While I was not expecting anything extraordinary, I would have thought that somebody (outside Eric Roberts) would have cared about this project, but I guess I was wrong. I needed more solidity with the story and a more focused director to help guide me through the piles of mess that the actors created. I needed help, but nobody listened to my yelp.

Grade: * out of *****

Not being a werewolf movie fan, I has this movie sitting around for several months when I finally decided to watch it. The movie starts with a young, new college graduate moving to NYC looking for his first job as a broker. He has no experience, and after being turned down by everyone he goes into a bar and the bar maid points out some brokers and gives him the number to call them as she has had a relationship with one of the brokers in the past. Innocently, he calls and is offered the job.

He finds out he is in over his head with these guys, as of course you know by now they are werewolves. The plot to get out of the group and lead a normal life is very short, but leading up to that is pretty long but interesting. The last 15 minutes of the movie are 100% predictable and if there was just a little more drama I could have given this another star.

Acting is pretty good, cinematography is good, and the set is good. No complaints there, but the movie will leave you wishing you had chosen to watch something with substance.

Wall Street Broker wanna-be's and werewolf fans alike should enjoy this film. Warning: NOT for children as there are some racy scenes.

"Wolves of Wall Street" is an absolutely terrible quasi-werewolf movie. (I say quasi-werewolf, because we never actually see any werewolves.) Obviously this grade Z production couldn't afford any special effects, so we don't get to see any man-to-wolf transformation, not even a fuzzy wolf man outfit.

This one doesn't even qualify as a "So bad its good" movie. It lacks any of the campiness that makes other DeCoteau productions enjoyable, or at least tolerable. On second thought, the scene where the wolves rip off their shirts and crawl in their boxer briefs across the floor was pretty darned funny! (Is there any other director that includes a thank you to Joe Boxer in the credits?) Actually, my favorite thing about the movie is that the moon is always full in New York City.

The music was awful, especially the embarrassing rap songs, the photography was repetitive (how many times do we have to see 55 Wall Street signs, or the view from the top of the building or, of course, the full moon?), and the acting was bottom-of-the-barrel.

A couple of good actors got sucked into this mess. Poor Louise Lasser appears for about 30 seconds. When her name scrolled by on the credits it took me quite awhile to figure out what character she played. And then there is Eric Roberts. I hope they both made a decent salary on this one.

Not impressed, disappointed, definitely not worth seeing of a movie to put you to sleep. Not action packed, gory either