'Real Wolf of Wall Street' review: It's the movie all over again

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Paramount +'s  three-parter about Stratton Oakmont — the Long Island-based brokerage launched by Jordan Belfort who fronted one of the biggest stock frauds in history before he was shut down in 1996 — promises a story "even darker and more debauched than" the one portrayed in the 2013 Martin Scorsese film "The Wolf of Wall Street."

This film includes extensive interviews with former high-level executives at the company (including Howie Gelfand, Andrew Greene, Jordan Shamah, Donna Schlessinger, Richard Bronson, Ross Portenoy, and Robert LoRusso) but Belfort’s ex-wife Nadine Caridi (later Nadine Macaluso) — Margot Robbie in the movie — appears only in clips.

MY SAY For a quick refresher, the movie was a blockbuster ($407 million box office) which collected a handful of Oscar nods. It also featured one of the most memorable, or unhinged, performances of Leonardo DiCaprio's career, as the reprobate con man who consumed Quaaludes like the rest of us consume bowls of Cheerios. The beloved movie, now firmly established in the "bro canon" alongside "Fight Club," "Pulp Fiction" and "Scarface," didn't do the image of Long Island any favors but did wonders for Belfort's. At 63, he's now a celebrity influencer who commands hundreds of thousands in speaking fees.

Clearly, a reality check is long overdue, or at least something redemptive. Enter "The Real Wolf," which is full of details, backstory and colorful quotes, most of those gratis Gelfand. Now involved in the travel industry, Gelfand recalled his Stratton Oakmont days as someone who could "motivate 500 animals to be phone terrorists."

The basics are all here. Founded in 1989 by Belfort and Danny Porush (Jonah Hill in the movie) in an office off a Lake Success parking lot, and fueled by an endless supply of drugs (mostly those Quaaludes and coke), these two cooked up a pump-and-dump penny stock scheme that netted salesmen 50% commission and investors worthless scraps of paper. When the Securities and Exchange Commission closed in, they created shadow companies in other states where they could launder earnings, then when the FBI got close, shipped cash overseas to Swiss bank accounts. They eventually wired up, then everything fell apart. Both were indicted in 1999, and for their cooperation, did a couple years in Club Fed. (Neither spoke to producers.)

All, or most of this, is in the DiCaprio movie but what of that "real" story — the one promised by the trailer which said the movie was "[expletive]" or that the pervasive drug use and overwhelming depravity was "much worse" in real life?

Well, not quite. "Exactly as it appears in the movie" (Schlessinger) or "the movie depicted that pretty well" (Portenoy). Joel M. Cohen, the federal prosecutor who finally collared Belfort, shorthands the Stratton Oakmont office culture with this: "drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, create some more stock; rewind; do the same thing again."

Yup, the movie.

"The Real Wolf" goes on to confirm arguably the most iconic scene from that movie — Belfort tumbling down the stairs at the Brookville Country Club — and the second most iconic (Belfort's boat swamped in the Mediterranean). You'll learn that DiCaprio's performance was impeccable, and the film's portrayal of the drug culture at Stratton Oakmont largely authentic.

Love or hate the movie — a case has obviously been made for both over the years — at least it got the basics right.

In fact, anyone who wants to know that "real" story should go to the Newsday clips — dozens of them, written by a brilliant reporter, Susan Harrigan, who died a couple of years ago. Over a long stretch back in the 1990s, she covered it all — including the victims — for this newspaper. Occasionally, her byline flits across the screen in homage. The producers say they've relied on 15,000 pages of new documents, and fresh interviews, but it's obvious Harrigan already gave them the road map. Even cesspools need reliable road maps, especially this cesspool.

BOTTOM LINE Well-produced, but the "real" story's already been told (hint: It's the movie).