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 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.