Hombre lobo americano

(There are Spoilers) Wanting to be a Wall Street stock broker since as long as he could remember young Jeff Allen,William Gregory Lee,was about to make his dream come true when he traveled to New York City from his home in Ohio to make his bones on what's called the street of gold and broken dreams: Wall Street.

It turned out that becoming a Wall Street stock & bond broker wasn't as easy as he at first thought since he had no experience at all in selling and buying stocks or bonds. Hurt and depressed Jeff goes into a local Wall Street watering hole, after another day of looking for and not finding a job, to drink his troubles away and meets the bartender pretty Annie Morris, Elisa Donovan. Annie telling Jeff that her late husband was a player, big shot, in the stock market she gives him a tip that there's this group, or pack, of stock brokers that go to the bar every evening after work and that their boss a man named Dyson Keller, Eric Roberts,is always on the lookout for new recruits in his brokerage house the very successful Wolfs Bros.

Getting to talk to Keller Jeff hits it right off with him and Keller offers him a job, if he could survive the two weeks of training, in Wolfs Bros. which Jeff jumps at. Becoming a member of the firm Jeff is at first very happy with his job but as time goes by he begins to realize that he's not working with a brokerage firm but with a pack of wolves lead by the two alpha males of the group Keller and fellow stock broker Vince, Michael Bergin. Eating raw meat and giving off a scent to attract the female of the species, wolf-women, to mate with as well as staking out their territory by marking it with their liquid bodily waste was the order of the day, and night, of the Wolfs Bros. stock brokers.

Jeff trying to get away from this insanity starts to make it with Annie, who he fell in love with, and before you know it he's living with Annie in her apartment. Keller who's also in love, or better yet in lust, with Annie would not stand for one of his lower echelon pack members having a mate that he won't share with him, the top dog, and his fellow brokers. It also turns out that Annie's late husband Tyler, Jeff Branson, was also a pack member of the Wolfs Bros. brokerage house and was murdered by Keller and his wolf-pack when he tried to leave it which is what Jeff is now thinking of doing.

Off-the-wall film about wolf men and women who act and think like, but aren't, werewolves like the ones we see on TV and in the movies and making complete fools of themselves trying to be them. There's a number of long and boring scenes in the movie especially those that have to do with the brokers getting involved hot and heavy with their mates, hot to trot wolf-women, that go on forever. It's in those scenes where We have the wolf-women not as much as even taking their tops, or bras, off that only seemed to have been put into the movie to obviously pad the movie to it's eventual 85 minute final print.

The ending has Jeff, with he help of Annie, fighting off and killing Keller Vince and their wolf pack with, I kid you not, a silver pen not bullet putting an end to this whole Wolfs Bros. wolf pack insanity once in for all.

"Wolves of Wall Street" reminds me in some way of the sequence in the 1981 movie "Wolfen" when a pack of wolves, or Wolfen, descend on Wall Street one evening, from their home in the burnt-out South Bronx, and massacre a number of people unfortunate enough to be there at the time; that's about the only thing that I can think of to compare the movie with. It's hard to try to understand what "Wolves of Wall Street" is trying to tell you besides the story of a pack of insane stock brokers more interested in a full moon then in making a 10% commission for executing a multi-million dollar stock transaction.

I watched this last night. I think because it stars A-list hotties (ooh, I haven't felt this much heat since Mariah Carey's incendiary performance in `Glitter') Eric Roberts, Louise Lasser and Baywatch's Michael Bergin (it's so nice to see they're working and for these penultimate thespians, the "Home Shopping Network" as well as "QVC", might just be a stretch) and a semblance of what could be argued as being a more, should I say "Klassy" distribution company, the faux gay porn without actual sex factor in this movie is anemically low. Don't look for tighty whities and gym socks here. This is Christopher Street, I mean "Wallstreet" Dammit. Where hunky stockbrokers wear black 2xist knockoffs. * "Leeches" and "Voodoo Academy" serve up more generous portions of post-pubescent pulchritude. Did anyone actually turn into a werewolf in the movie? OH HELL NO! Call for continuity expert! How many days does a full moon usually last? In this movie, the full moon seems to be in phase more than a week. During the ooh so scary transformations, the actors turned away from the camera, and then after poorly edited quick cuts, the "wolves" (or characters who were supposed to have turned into werewolves) would turn back towards the camera looking very "Oooooohhh I'm so maaaaad I could just spit tacks". Then, with their temples decorated with purple marker lines, they would lunge at their victims and give them a hickey. Evidently, the production company here, wasn't about to waste time and an obviously coach class catering budget on special "Werewolf" effects. However, to the movie's credit, the actors were far less Bonnie Bell, pink sparkle-kissy lipped out, than in some of DeCoteau's *other work. Did you ever see the movies "The Howling" or "Silver Bullet" even `Teen Wolf'? Well, in those flicks, the werewolves were pretty nasty ambre's. Not so in this movie. These werewolves were closer to "Miss Jackson if you're nasty". The fembot quotient we've all come to love and expect from a DeCoteau epic, was in full effect, especially at the "Oh thank God this is over...*ahem, cough cough* I mean, is it over already?' climactic showdown when the main character Jeffy lube and his "Happy to be me" girlfriend Annie are you OK, defeat the entire pack of werewolves, by drawing on, ooh, my bad, I mean stabbing them ("take that you you you bitch in cheap shoes! Eeeeumph, I'm, oooooh, ooooh take that"!) with a silver ballpoint pen. I'd still give it 3 out of 5 stars only for the fact that it is a "B" movie and DeCoteau doesn't force the issue that his flicks are anything other and or more than that. If I was to judge this movie strictly against DeCoteau's others, well then it would probably only get 2 out of 5 stars.

Wolves of Wall Street has an interesting concept. But, that is the only interesting element in this movie.

Here a Wall Street wanna-be fresh out of school and with no luck finding a position elsewhere joins a highly successful all-male Wall Street Firm whose initiation consists of transforming the new members into werewolves.

Now a Wall Street werewolf may be a new concept.

The concept that a werewolf is just a person in dark lighting, some blue make-up who catches his victims with his "odor" while novel is AWFUL. The reason it wasn't tried before is that it doesn't work.

The werewolves in the film are supposed to be completely irresistible to women, but there is hardly any evidence of this in the film. They cut in and out repeatedly of the two or so scenes of anything remotely erotic. And, I stress REMOTELY.

These werewolves are too "suave" to hunt or chase their prey. They just approach their intended victim and let their exuding natural pheromones do the rest. And other than a wet kiss on the victims' thigh, there doesn't seems to be much other damage.

I did learn this though: with pheromones, a designer suit and just the right "I'm too hot for you" glance, a werewolf can even "convert" a lesbian. But, in this case, a "lesbian" is a woman the werewolf can't get any vibes from. Sounds like the guy who gets rejected at the bar!

Nothing scary... No suspense... No special effects... No sex...

These wolves don't even have canine teeth!

If you want to see male models parading in fine suits looking smug, you will be quite pleased. The entire budget seems to be spent on clothes and bad actors, in that order.

Do yourself a favor ... just pass.

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 *****

This movie seemed like a fun way of wasting time. I figured that the movie would be a cheesy werewolf movie only useful to kill time, boy was I wrong. This movie was a total waste of money, I don't even know why I rented it anymore. This film sucked so bad, because the story was a piece of crap, its intents of suspense, drama and horror fell flat on their asses. THERE ARE NO WEREWOLVES IN THIS MOVIE!!!!!! no whatsoever, I can't even complain about the bad special effects, because there are none!! It doesn't even have blood or anything like that. No tits, No blood, No werewolves. NO NOTHING. This film was nothing but a waste of time. Do yourself a favor and skip this piece of trash.