Hollywood loves a swindler.
Leonardo DiCaprio has just proved as much. His role as a dwarf-tossing, boiler-room trader in "The Wolf of Wall Street" does plenty to reinforce the modern day image of bankers as the real gangsters of New York.
(Read more: Strippers,dwarfs & coke: The real Wall Street)
Jordan Belfort and Leonardo DiCaprioGetty Images
"My name is Jordan Belfort," says DiCaprio in the opening line of the film. "The year I turned 26, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week."
After "Black Monday" in 1987, Belfort switches from selling companies like AT&T to flogging penny stocks to the richest one percent of investors in a "pump and dump" scheme that left clients holding more than $100 million losses. Belfort makes his fortune trading on the stock market but becomes addicted to sex and drugs.
