Iconic Scenes: The Wolf of Wall Street – The Yacht Bribe
I love The Wolf of Wall Street . I think it is a spectacular film that seems to grow more relevant as time passes. I also think that the central character and narrator, Jordan Belfort, is not the most important or key character – that is Agent Denham. So I’m looking at the brilliant scene where Belfort and Denham first meet.
What Happens
Multi-millionaire and thoroughly corrupt stockbroker Jordan Belfort invites two FBI agents to his luxury yacht after he learns that they are investigating him. Agent Denham, and a virtually silent partner, arrive for what starts as a very friendly meeting. Belfort hands over some of the information the FBI has been trying to get while constantly trying to impress them with his wealth and insisting he’s done nothing wrong. Belfort draws Denham into a conversation and it seems the FBI agent is not happy at being given the case and would be willing to play ball with Belfort. At which point, Belfort tries to bribe Denham, and then the tone changes. It’s immediately obvious that Denham is not willing to play ball and is determined to bring Belfort down. The conversation gets increasingly acrimonious and ends with Belfort literally throwing lobsters and handfuls of cash at the departing FBI agents.
When you sail on a yacht fit for a Bond villain, sometimes you gotta act the part
DiCaprio is sensational in this scene. Despite getting very good advice not to contact the FBI and try some scheming, this is exactly what Belfort does. They meet on his insanely luxurious yacht, where Belfort has beautiful women lounging on chairs, he is dressed in bright white “yacht clothes” and constantly turning on his beaming smile. He offers them lobsters and drinks. It does not seem to occur to Belfort that showing off his immense, and ill-gotten wealth, might not be the best idea when you’re being investigated for crimes in the stock market.
Belfort’s attempt at bribery is fantastic. Basically detailing a story where he advised someone in need of money in what stocks to invest in and that person making a fortune and how Belfort “would be willing to do that for anyone”. When challenged about this being a bribe Belfort reveals he researched what legally constitutes a bribe and that wouldn’t count. Again, it’s a little suspicious for someone to be able to recite the criminal code of a crime if they’re not a lawyer.
Good for you, Little Man
Oh, Agent Denham, you film stealing hero. Denham is played by Kyle Chandler who, and this is important for the Denham role, is your go-to guy for American decency (if you need someone younger than Tom Hanks), he is probably best known for his role in Friday Night Lights where he played an honourable, upstanding and inspirational football coach. Denham’s casual chatting with Belfort seems to suggest he is not interested in the case and possibly dissatisfied with his job, the attempted bribe being when he flips to his real character.
As Belfort becomes more aggressive Denham responds in kind and leads to one of the all-time best deliveries, “Good for you, little man,” when sarcastically congratulating Belfort on becoming a Wall Street douchebag without any help from anyone else. Belfort is stunned by this comment but mainly in that he can’t understand it…he’s rich, really rich, how can he be a “little man”, he’s a giant. A colossus. The embodiment of the American Dream. The thing is, of course, Denham is right.
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A lot of this scene is purely about status. Of all the places Belfort could have met with the FBI agents he chooses his insanely expensive yacht. He is obsessed with money and how much the FBI agents make, originally pretending to be sympathetic but quickly changing to just mocking them. Belfort assumes that because Denham works for the FBI for what to him is an insignificant amount of money he is a loser. The idea that Denham might believe in what he’s doing is either inconceivable or at best a pitiable weakness. To me, this is the best and most interesting scene in the whole film – not the drug-filled hedonistic parties, not the cult-like team talks Belfort gives his employees, not the incredibly charismatic phone calls Belfort makes when selling stocks but this scene where Denham sizes up Belfort and sees right through him.
Years ago David Cross and Bob Odenkirk made a sketch show called Mr. Show , which contained a sketch based on the premise “someone who makes more money than you is better than you”, so Van Gogh, Einstein and Galileo are actually pretty unsuccessful people. This is Jordan Belfort’s philosophy – he is better than just about everyone he meets because he is richer.
The Hero I’m Going To Be Back At The Office, When The Bureau seizes this boat!
All Belfort manages to do in this scene is upset the FBI and probably convince them that yes, he is absolutely breaking the law. It’s an interesting look at the dynamic of power in America (and indeed the whole world) – who is the more powerful person? Belfort with his huge personal wealth or Denham as a federal officer, a representative of the most powerful country on Earth. There was a lot of discussion at the time about if people actually saw Belfort as the hero of this film, that people liked him and wanted him to win. I saw this as Goodfellas but for white-collar crime. In this scene Belfort helps further his own downfall, antagonising the FBI. In the final moments of this scene, Belfort has just finished throwing money at Denham and his arrogance and deluded grandeur fade as he realises he has just made a terrible mistake.
Also Read: Iconic Scenes: American Psycho – Business Card Scene
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Posted by Richard Norton
Gentleman, podcaster and pop culture nerd, I love talking and writing about pretty much all pop culture.
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We've Read The Script For The Wolf Of Wall Street — Here Are The 15 Scenes We Can't Wait To See
We get very excited anytime there's a new Wall Street moving coming up. The sheer suspense of waiting to see who is cast, where it's shot... well, what's better?
Reading the script early — that's better.
We've now obtained a copy of The Wolf of Wall Street script, written Terence Winter. The movie is being directed by Martin Scorsese, stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and is based on the autobiography of Wall Street castaway, Jordan Belfort.
Back in the 1990s, Belfort ran Stratton-Oakmont, a Long Island based pump and dump that found itself on top of the Wall Street world. Think: Drugs, hookers, parties with performing midgets.
And then it all came crashing down. Belfort went to jail for 20 months and lost everything.
We think you'll agree that this is a movie worth watching, and here are some of the moments that we think will make it really sing.
The movie opens with a very professional commercial about Belfort's firm, and then goes into a scene of he and his brokers having a dwarf throwing contest.
According to the script, classical music plays as "a conservative group of smiling ethnically diverse actors surrounding their young chairman Jordan Belfort" pose through a Gene Hackman voice-over.
Then you head to Stratton-Oakmont headquarters and 700 20-something stockbroker bros are chanting and throwing around dollars bills to see who can throw a cape-clad dwarf into a dollar sign bulls-eye.
Jordan is being played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
More chaos: Jordan's first day in the bullpen L.F. Rothschild in 1980s suspender wearing Wall Street.
Jordan walks in and is immediately berated by his supervisor, Scott Mollen, who tells him he'll be "the connector" calling 500 clients all day. "You are lower than f*cking pond scum," Mollen tells him.
Luckily, Belfort also meets Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill) , Mollen's much more polished superior. "F*ck him," he tells Jordan, "I'm senior broker here and he's just a worthless piker. Let's grab lunch later."
And then then the opening bell rings as Porush yells, "Let's f*ck!" And the race begins — brokers dial like crazy and everyone is screaming — it's the sound of greed, says Jordan's voice-over.
At lunch, Danny and Jordan have a martini drinking contest until one of them passes out.
They're at a high-end restaurant and Danny is doing coke from a spoon when the Maitre'D comes over. He tells him:
"Here's the game plan Luis. Bring us two Absolute martinis straight up. Precisely seven and half minutes later you deliver those you'll deliver two more, then two more after five minutes until one of us passes out."
Jordan says he doesn't drink and tries, and fails, to order a 7-Up.
Jordan passes the Series 7 and becomes a broker, but his first day happens to be October 19th,1987 — Black Monday.
There's silence on the floor, dread one everyone's face, and Jordan's voice-over tells us that Rothchilds closed in a month.
Jordan gets Danny to come work with him at a penny stock brokerage over steaks at Peter Luger.
You know how we feel about Peter Luger.
After Rothchilds, Jordan lands a job at a shady penny stock brokerage where his professional skill makes him serious money. His commission is 50%.
"I was a trained Pitbull in a company of lap dogs," Jordan says.
After making $94,000 in one month, he convinces Danny to work with him. Eventually, Danny is so good that when Jordan starts Stratton-Oakmont, he makes Danny a minority partner.
Jordan figures out how to sell penny stocks to rich people and teaches his team to do the same with an awesome presentation about urgency.
This could be the movie's "greed is good" moment if DiCaprio delivers this monologue right. Picture a bunch of brokers in the Marriot as Jordan gives them this fired-up speech:
"Gentlemen, it's a new day. The clients we've done after in the past — they're done. We will now target exclusively the wealthiest one percent of Americans. The methods we've used — over. Loud, obnoxious sales hype is worthless with these people. In military terms it's like carpet-bombing — noise, menacing, and only marginally effective. As Stratton brokers you will be laser-guided smart bombs aimed at high-priority targets. You will establish an initial relationship with your clients selling only blue chip stocks — then and only then will you attempt to sell the pink sheets, where the real money is..."
Stratton-Oakmont grows to over 100 employees and makes $28.7 million in penny stocks. Jordan basically has a ticker tape parade in the office.
There's a college marching band dressed only in their hats and underwear, baton-twirlers, confetti, clowns, gymnasts, champagne and hors d' oeuvres...
and of course, strippers.
Stratton-Oakmont blows up and becomes so wild that Jordan has to declare the office a sex free zone from 9 AM to 7 PM.
What we're looking forward to in this scene is the memo Jordan writes to inform his employees of the new rule. Inside a red circle, two "anatomically correct stick figures f*ck doggy-style, a red line slashing through them," says the script.
Jordan's wife catches him in a limo with his mistress, Nadine.
Jordan meet the blond, leggy Nadine ( played by Margot Robbie ) at a party at his Westhampton house. They become inseparable.
One night they're riding around in Jordan's limo. He's doing shots of vodka from glass in Nadine's breasts, and suddenly his wife Denise opens the door.
Jordan and co. beat the living daylights out of Patrick, his butler, after Nadine catches him having an orgy in Jordan's apartment.
She also accuses him of stealing $50,000 in cash and jewelry.
The guys beat him senseless and almost throw him over a balcony. Eventually, Jordan calls the police and then pays them $1,000 each to beat Patrick.
The FBI is in Jordan's office investigating his trading records as he pulls off an IPO scam.
Jordan and his friend Todd plot how they'll make a truck-load off of a company called Arncliffe National's IPO. Todd will buy low and sell at certain point while Stratton brokers unload the stock on their clients.
Meanwhile, FBI agents are pouring over the firm's trading records in a conference room that Jordan has bugged. He even turns off the heat to make the agents as cold and uncomfortable as possible.
Jordan proposes to Nadine and has his engagement party in Vegas. Stratton brokers and hookers are flown in from everywhere.
The party is insane, obviously — limos, champagne etc.
The best part, though, is that Jordan describes three kinds of hookers; Blue chips, NASDAQs, and pink sheets (penny stocks). The guys get in a little trouble with the pink sheet pimps, and they clash with some of the NYPD and Vegas police Jordan hired as security for the party.
The party cost him $2 million, he says.
Jordan and Nadine actually have sex on piles of money.
No really, stacks of $20,000 to $50,000.
Jordan gives his guys another rousing speech when Stratton lands the Steve Madden IPO.
Here's DiCaprio's other shot at Wall Street monologue fame:
I want everybody to look down. See that little black box in front of you? It's called a telephone...All you have to do is pick up that phone and speak the words I've taught you and it will make you richer than the most powerful CEO in the country. And I don't care if you graduated from Harvard or f*cking Bumf*ck University or never got past the f*cking fourth grade...And if anyone here thinks I'm crazy, get the f*ck out of here and get a job at McDonald's because that's where you f*cking belong... Be aggressive. Be ferocious. Be telephone f*cking terrorists."
Obviously, the brokers go nuts.
Eventually Jordan is caught by the FBI, strikes a deal, and wears a wire to work.
We can only imagine that this scene is going to be amazing to shoot. Tons of intensity.
Jordan says that he feels like an absolutely "piece of sh*t" as he walks through the trading floor, but he does try to save Danny. While they're in a meeting he shows Danny a sheet of paper that says — "Don't incriminate yourself. I'm wearing a wire."
But Danny eventually gives him up.
We're pretty sure this movie is going to end up on this list after it comes out next year.
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