this film was based on a book written by the person who is the main character, who is a despicable excuse for a human being. The author wrote about himself essentially?

So I guess I'm really asking was the author this character in actual life? I wanted to see the film, sort of, but now I'm having second thoughts.

… so, I guess the answer is, "yes".

I'm not sure what your motivation might be to see the movie. In my case, I knew it was the portrayal of this story, and I wanted to see how accurate it would be. However, I didn't know how close it might be the actual book written by this Wall Street huckster.

You should understand that the story paints a pretty accurate account of what actually went on. The screen-play was written by Terence Winter.

I don't happen to be a huge DiCaprio-Scorsese stuff, and therefore, my motivation was to know that movie goers would be presented with reality. I believe more people need to understand how the pump and dump schemes work. They were presented as rather dark comedy. I think the message of the movie is interestingly delivered because DiCaprio, as he plays the character often looks into the screen and talks directly to the audience. As Winter said, "You are being sold the Jordan Belfort story by Jordan Belfort, and he is a very unreliable narrator."

It doesn't make it Bonnie and Clyde glamorous… It really presents scum bagger of the worst type. My friend seeing it tonight with me stated at one point, "I'm worried that kids will get the wrong message seeing this." Well, first of all, if they get in, it'll be with an adult in tow. Frankly, I think "kids" already are wise to much scum bagger, and there is so much of it, the message to most anyone coming out of this movie would be how the love of money is so disgusting.

But, that's me.

Thinking I should Netflix it so I can fast forward through the worst of the puke factors!

It happens that I'm watching Shutter Island at the moment. I wasn't much of a DiCaprio fan, but gotta say he's doing a great job with the character in this really bizarre psycho drama. It's been difficult for me to watch, I'm not quite sure I can make it through to the end.

Military operation involved in performing experimentation on "patients" that are imprisoned on an island. Freaky.

Thanks again!

...

A: When Jordan walked on the scene, I didn’t know who he was until someone reminded me of the movie Boiler Room and even then, it didn’t make much difference—we’re all dressed in the same prison garb. There was nothing outstanding about him, other than the fact that when I met him, he was playing backgammon and having a conversation with another guy and talking to me at the same time. He was one of those geniuses who can do many things at the same time. And then we ended up in the same cubicle, so at night he’d tell me these great stories, which became (the book) The Wolf of Wall Street.

Q: What role did you play in the writing of the book?

A: Well, I was working on a book myself, so every evening or every chance I got I would sit and write. Jordan got curious and wanted to know what I was doing, and I told him I was writing a book, and he said, “I’m gonna write.” So he started kind of emulating me—every night, we’d sit together, he’d write his pages and I’d write my pages.

After a while he showed me what he had written, and it was the only time I had critiqued someone really heavy—usually when someone writes something, you say, “Oh yeah, that’s great, keep going.” But I knew instinctively he had a lot more to offer than what he showed me. … I told him, “Honestly, you haven’t really written anything.” He had been working on it for a couple of weeks so he was really pissed off. He snatched the papers back, and I said, “No, you’ve got to write those stories you’ve been telling me at night. Your real life is much more exciting than any kind of imaginary story you could come up with.”

...
http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/09/tommy-chong-recalls-his-months-in-prison-with-the-wolf-of-wall-street/

I think he does motivational speaking now too. Havent seen the movie though.

According to federal prosecutors, Belfort has failed to live up to the restitution requirement of his 2003 sentencing agreement. The agreement requires him to pay 50% of his income towards restitution to the 1,513 clients he defrauded. Of the $11.6 million that has been recovered for Belfort's victims, $10.4 million of the total is the result of the sale of forfeited properties. The sentencing agreement mandates a total of $110 million in restitution.

In October 2013, federal prosecutors filed a complaint that Belfort, who had income of $1,767,209 from the publication of his two books and the sale of the movie rights, plus an additional $24,000 from motivational speaking since 2007, paid restitution of only $243,000 over the past four years. The government is currently not holding Belfort in default of his payments in order to keep negotiations open, but it is unclear when the full amount of the mandated restitution will be repaid.

He spent only 22 months in jail for ruining the lives of thousands of relatively poor people. Still making tons of money…

http://jordanbelfort.com/about-jordan/

to hell with him and his ilk.