Don Jon

By John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Wrongheaded values, a surfeit of obscene images and, above all, a contemptuous treatment of confession combine to torpedo “Don Jon”, a libido-fuelled comedy about porn addiction.

Glenne Headly and Tony Danza star in a scene from the movie “Don Jon.” (CNS photo/Relativity Media)

Lost in the wreckage of writer, director and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s helming debut is a potentially respectable message about the need to renounce at least the worst excesses of objectifying lust.

Gordon-Levitt plays suburban New Jersey bartender Jon Martello. A man of many contradictions, Jon’s lifestyle embraces hours spent pleasuring himself in front of his computer, evenings devoted to prowling bars for casual hook-ups, and weekly Mass attendance preceded by a perfunctory visit to the confessional. There he all but boasts of his prolific sins and receives in response only the rote assignment of a token penance.

On one of his nightly outings, Jon spots the bridge-and-tunnel bombshell of his dreams, Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson). Ambitious and manipulative, gum-chewing Barbara keeps Jon waiting for sex, not out of any sense of virtue, but to make him knuckle under to her many demands.

Yet no sooner have they completed their first bedroom encounter than the horrified Barbara catches Jon in the act of ogling his digital delights. He tries to explain the situation away, but it’s clear that he will eventually have to choose between rank sensual pleasure and his aspirations for a genuine romance.

There are some perceptible good intentions at work here. Still, the fact that the only moral guidance Jon receives comes not from the priest he so blithely bombards with his transgressions but from Esther (Julianne Moore), an earthy older woman he meets in night school, is telling. She nudges him in the right direction, but not very far.

Long before she manages even that, so much of the material that beguiles Jon has been flashed across the screen – far more than is necessary to tell his story – and so much ignorance-driven disdain has been shown toward Catholic practice that disgust has long extinguished any initial sense of indulgence.

The film contains sacrilegious humour, pervasive graphic sexual content, frequent profane expressions, some of them blasphemous and relentless rough and crude language. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

The Wolf of Wall Street

By John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Like the animal of its title, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is a vicious and predatory piece of cinema that inculcates values directly antithetical to those of Scripture and sacred tradition. As such it represents a deeply reprehensible misuse of the considerable talents involved in its making.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a scene from the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” (CNS photo/Paramount)

This vile exercise in immorality charts the fact-based rise and fall of penny-stock swindler Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio). Together with his closest associates – most prominently personified here by a character called Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) – Belfort played on the unrealistic aspirations of naive small-time investors to make himself rich. He then used his ill-gotten gains to fund a decadent lifestyle full of narcotics, status-symbol toys and casual sex.

Not surprisingly, a similar callousness to that shown toward his victims seems to have guided Belfort’s personal life, as we see when he dumps his earnest first spouse Teresa (Cristin Milioti) to marry his mistress Naomi (Margot Robbie), a trophy wife if there ever was one.

Anything but a cautionary tale, director Martin Scorsese’s screen version of Belfort’s memoir revels in greed, criminality, substance abuse and bedroom behavior straight from the barnyard. It also sends viewers the resentment-fueled message that capitalism is a con game and that only fools and drones try to make a living honestly.

Thus the diligent work of straight-arrow FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who eventually succeeds in bringing Belfort down, is shown to be largely pointless: Though stripped of his assets, Belfort has the last laugh when he’s consigned to a minimum-security prison with the facilities and atmosphere of a posh country club.

Given that Belfort is a real-life felon who presumably ruined the financial security of many of his duped investors, the fact that Terence Winter’s screenplay invites audiences to root for his wrongdoing – and to take pleasure in the excesses it financed – is troubling to say the least. Moviegoers dedicated to Judeo-Christian morality should avoid subsidizing this repentance-free and socially irresponsible project.

The film contains a benign view of sinful and illegal actions, domestic violence, strong sexual content, including graphic aberrant and adulterous sexual activity and full nudity, drug use, frequent profanities, pervasive rough and crude language and a few obscene gestures. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.