Movie Review: “The Great Gatsby”

Now, in another movie, and of course when reading the book, “The Great Gatsby,” it always entertains and provides insight.

Thirty nine years after the last movie version (thirty nine being “Jack Benny’s (perpetual) age” and Mr. Benny died in 1974, the year Robert Redford starred as “Gatsby”) I really enjoyed the movie. That was the case with Mr. Redford and now with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic book is a timeless account of the human condition, with some emphasis on money and greed. It also is a great love story.

The direction and special effects, depicting New York/Long Island in the 1920’s, are superb.

DiCaprio, as with Redford before him, is so much more than a great looking man. He literally shines in a fine performance as the dashing, mysterious “Gatsby.”

Tobey Maguire both impressed and surprised me as “Nick Carroway,” who also is the film/story’s narrator. The director is Baz Luhrmann, while Carey Mulligan plays Daisy Buchanan, the object of Gatsby’s great love.

Amitabh Bachchan lights up the screen in his brief but  key role as “Meyer Wolfsheim,” the thinly disguised real life gangster, Arnold Rothstein. “Gatsby” tells “Nick” “Wolfsheim”/Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series. “He saw an opportunity and seized it.”

That is a sobering reality, depicted effectively in the movie. Much of this fine movie, based on a classic book, does the same.