Wolves of Wall Street. I know what you're thinking, probably; "wow so what if we took the title of a very famous movie really literally?" but ok, so have I got a surprise for you; this movie actually pre-dates the release of "The Wolf of Wall Street" - Jordan Belfort book by 5 years, and the subsequent movie by over 10 years and in fact; has far more in common... apparently, with the 1929 "The Wolf of Wall Street" concerning a Trader who corners the market in copper and sells short amassing a fortune but by unscrupulous means, so it's nothing to do with that Leonardo Di Caprio movie actually, and well, that's... all very lovely... but fuck this is spooky season?! There's nothing spooky about Wall Street Trading... that... I... know of... so you know what? Fuck it. Let's take the title literally. Lets put fucking WEREWOLVES in fucking Wall Street. Let's go there. What's the worst that can happen?
Oh... alright then.
Jeff Allen (William Gregory Lee) moves to New York with dreams of finally becoming the one thing he only ever wanted to be in life; a Broker... which is in of itself quite sad. I mean I wanted to be a Fireman and then an Archaeologist so I could dig up dinosaur bones when I was a kid... anyway his first day looking for a job goes pretty horrendously and in the evening whilst drowning his sorrows he meets Annabelle Morris (Elisa Donovan) who immediately eviscerates all his dreams and aspirations in less than 3 minutes, which is pretty impressive, but he at least leaves the bar with the number for Dyson Keller (Eric Roberts); Managing Partner for Wolfe Brothers Brokers and... fucking hell! It's that dick Frank from Golden Shoes! Jeff at least does enough to impress Dyson, seemingly, as he leaves with the offer of a trainee position and celebrates like a geek on the steps to the street... and cue a very of-it's-time Nu Metal musical segway of Jeff's first week set in a creepy, completely ill fitting old castle... Jeff's first week seems to go well enough and returning to the bar where he met Annabelle, who "doesn't date Brokers", he literally pressures her into letting him walk her home and is unrelenting that they should go out, but Annabelle, to her credit sticks to her morals and says she'll think about it. And then... things suddenly get very... made for TV porno movie... when the four brokers (not counting Dyson) stand in front of 2 well dressed ladies sitting on thrones, and proceed to synchronised strip down to their underwear and walk on all fours to the girls and begin seducing them... which was a bit embarrassing to watch but sike! It cuts away to a shot of the full moon, with wolves howling and girls screaming and I think you can guess where we are going with this... meanwhile back to some... normality and Jeff rocks up at Annabelle's, one thing leads to another and they end up in bed together, because of course they do. But that's enough of that, let's have some recycled footage and audio of stock trading going on in... a creepy, completely ill fitting old castle... that ends with Jeff being taken on as a Broker. Later at a bar, all seems to be getting messy very quickly with Dyson and the other Brokers getting Jeff well and truly shit faced, and after taking him to the rooftop, underneath a full moon, after Dyson asks Jeff if "this is all you ever wanted?" one of the other Brokers shoots forwards and bites Jeff right on the neck! Waking up the next morning Jeff can't decide whether that was a dream or not, but it's not really developed on and instead we just get another Nu-Metal montage to that same music and some recycled footage as we see Jeff develop in his role, bang Annabelle some more and buy a weird looking hat and some sunglasses... with that out of the way, Dyson takes Jeff to one side and tells him he doesn't approve of his relationship with Annabelle, as the 2 had something in the past and that he thinks he should stay away from her. Confronting Annabelle she denies there was ever anything between them and eludes to her ex-husband deceased as having some history with Dyson and Wolfe Brothers before... Angry at how Dyson is treating him, Jeff confronts Dyson but it doesn't go well, and ends with Dyson pissing on his shoes. Yes, literally. And one of the other Brokers, Vince (Michael Bergin) tries to talk Jeff round telling him he is "a pup" who "is just being trained"... can you see where we're going with this yet?... later that evening Annabelle pops round to see Jeff but he blows his top when he can smell Dyson's cologne on her and they argue but eventually make it up when Annabelle confesses that Dyson came to see her and was hitting on her. I'd like to point out that we are now half way through the movie and not a single fucking Werewolf yet.... THIS IS SPOOKY SEASON?! Where my Werewolves at?! It's the end of the week, and it has somehow been a full moon for over 7 days now which is mildly concerning... but again Dyson and Jeff clash and he utters some usual bollocks about owning everything and making money, and Jeff again freaks out but this time Vince tries to nurture him along and after explaining that as he develops he will be able to smell human pheromones, he introduces her to a very attractive lady in red who proceeds to snog his face off followed by an odd scene that implies they ended up banging and I'm convinced this was supposed to be a softcore porn. This was supposed to be a softcore porn and they decided it was too highbrow or something. Oh and; 53 minutes in and no fucking Werewolves yet. At Midnight, presumably the following day, Jeff and Vince meet and Vince gives us some lovely foreshadowing; warning Jeff to keep "his predator under control" or "in your moment of rage you will cry out for a bloodlust like never before" and later that night, after somehow smoothing things over with Annabelle, Jeff can't sleep until he dashes out of the apartment and kills some poor innocent bystander, or at least it's implied, we don't actually see him transform or whatever... and later at a party Jeff becomes increasingly irritable until he attacks a guy he believes was hitting on Annabelle, tearing at his neck, but Annabelle see's him attack and in a panic runs away from him terrified but is followed by Jeff who breaks into her apartment and presumably attacks her...? In the morning Annabelle is still alive, and Jeff seemingly doesn't remember what happened, which is useful because fucked if we, the audience, know... Annabelle confesses to Jeff that Tyler, her ex-husband was ripped to shreds (couldn't have been by Werewolves because there aren't any in this fucking movie...) and she believes it was the Wolfe Brothers who did it. She begs Jeff to leave, but he says he can't and instead the pair decide that the only way they can break the curse, yeah they at least acknowledge they are both Werewolves now... is to kill the lead Wolf; Dyson. The following day, Jeff walks out of Wolfe Brothers, despite threats from Vince that he has to remain, and as a consequence, the Brothers kidnap Annabelle, instructing Jeff to meet them at the office if he wants to see her alive again. At the office Dyson again talks some nonsense about giving Jeff everything he ever wanted, and when he goes to attack Jeff, Jeff stabs him with a silver pen, believing him to be the Alpha Male, but twist! It's actually Vince! Vince uh... pounces... for want of a better word, on Jeff and the pair fight with Jeff dropping his silver pen, meanwhile Annabelle manages to break free, and grabbing the pen is somehow able to overcome three incredibly powerful "Werewolves" and stab all three of them... Vince flees into the street followed by Jeff and Annabelle and again pounces on Jeff, but with a quick stab from Annabelle he collapses to the floor and the Wolfe Brothers are finished. Together Jeff and Annabelle walk off into the moonlight as the camera zooms in on a dead Vince whose eyes suddenly flick open...
WHAT UTTER BOLLOCKS. I actually had halfway decent aspirations for this movie. I mean, it's a FTW pick so I knew going in I had to manage my expectations, but we've had good ones before now; The Phoenix Project and uhh... well Killer Robots was not awful... but this was complete garbage. You can't set me up with the promise of Werewolves and then not deliver on your Werewolves? Well I mean, they kinda did; the premise here was that you gradually transform but as you do you don't become hairy and wolf-like you're instead just more predatory with heightened senses... but that is a shit premise.
It felt like a cop out, instead of spending money on makeup and special effects just have them psychologically become Werewolves and well... ok... I could actually appreciate that I guess, if the circumstances were different but it really felt like a swing and a miss here. They were more metaphorically Werewolves supposed to symbolise the cut-throat attitude of Brokers I guess, but then they toyed with it throughout the film, halfway suggesting they transformed and killed people, hell there was references to the moon, which apparently never waxed, never waned, remained a full moon for like 14 days which is pretty fucking catastrophic...I was left unsatisfied. That's what I'm trying to say. I wasn't satisfied with my movie experience.
Let's talk about the acting; Eric Roberts, who we have come across before now was particularly rambly and preachy here called upon to mutter bollocks about being ruthless in the pursuit of money and make clumsy metaphors about the Brokers being "family" and a "pack", but for what it's worth he comes across as an unlikeable douchebag in this movie too, so he at least has that part of his act well down. Vince was fucking anonymous. Vanilla Vince. Who played him? Michael Bergin. Great. William Gregory Lee as the lead was at times quite difficult to deal with and I was feeling a real limited range from him, but in fairness when he wasn't trying to be the smooth talking, intellectual type and was genuinely suffering his "transition", he did a decent job of showcasing the pain he was going through. But playing a wet-behind-the-ears Wall Street Broker with supreme confidence and silver tongue, was just a bit outside his range. Elisa Donovan as Annabelle was genuinely about the most credible actor to come out of this, I mean she was a bit stereotypical love interest in areas, but genuinely showed depth and looked like she was acting. Far too good to be wasting her time with this nonsense.
I'm not even going to waste my time on the plot. Why did Annabelle give Jeff the number of Wolfe Brothers Brokers if she A) liked him and knew they were Werewolves B) knew they were Werewolves C) liked him and knew they were Werewolves?! The movie spends about an hour meandering around them maybe not being Werewolves and maybe being Werewolves; they're called fucking Wolfe Brothers. They use words like "family", "pack", "pup"... do you need me to draw you a map?! There was the odd sexy but not quite sexy parts that were... frankly bizarre... Jeff attacks Annabelle turning her into a Werewolf why? They immediately jump to the conclusion that they have to slay the Alpha Male Wolf why?... what did it change? Ya still Werewolves mate. Still gonna wanna kill people and stuff? How did Annabelle so easily overcome 3 other "Werewolves"? Oh just fuck off.
Recycled footage. I hope you like it if you plan on watching this because, a bit like Almighty Thor, this movie fucking loved it. The same bit inside the odd castle office with Brokers speaking to imaginary customers and generally pretending to be cool big hot shots? They must have used that 3 or 4 times. And there was more than just a generous sprinkling of flashback footage to earlier parts of the movie from about the mid-way point onwards I think almost every scene shoehorned in a flashback. I think a good 20 minutes of run time was recycled stuff. Another 10 minutes was shots of the full moon and city scape. An education on how to pad out a movie.
Also get ready to hear the same 2 songs. Especially that Nu-Metal rock instrumental because they paid for them to be produced and they are getting their money's worth. I have a love-hate relationship with the whole musical montage trope. Sometimes, in the right place at the right time it's a perfect way to transition a story without plodding around. Off the top of my head; Wild Child did a decent job with utilizing them actually. Here I think they deployed it about... 4 times? I can think of about 5 scenes of movie here that were actually scenes and not just framing shots, montages, padding around flashback scenes, or recycled footage. The height of lazy, low budget production.
No Werewolves. No fucking Werewolves and... oh ok I know we touched on it earlier, but if ya ain't covered in hair, howling at the moon with a big long snout, ya ain't a Werewolf. This is Spooky Season?! I don't want no quasi-psychological horror where they cut away to a skyline shot with a full moon and a repetitive sound effect of wolves howling and people screaming every time there's an implied "attack". I don't want implied anything?! I wanna see some fucking Werewolves. I want Wolfmen running around in suits and ties attacking other men, biting, clawing, fucking ANYTHING? Not this bollocks. Wall Street Trading probably is more spooky than this movie! Zero out of Five.
