Sure, it's three hours long, but The Wolf of Wall Street has wowed audiences stateside and is planning on wooing the UK this weekend. Martin Scorsese's retelling of the story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort is being praised as one of the funniest, wittiest and outrageous films of the year and a standout - perhaps career best performance - from Leonardo Dicaprio has pulled in the movie fans.

Wolf of Wall StreetLeonardo DiCaprio [left] in 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

Belfort was an infamous broker who turned to a life of fraud and corruption in the late 1980s. However, for the most part this isn't a dark tale of criminality. Not at all. Quite the opposite. This is a story of supermodels, luxury yachts, midget throwing and champagne. 

Dicaprio won the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy on Sunday (January 12, 2013) and although he's likely to fall short at the Oscars, he'll almost certainly be in the mix.

"DiCaprio has hinted before that comedy might be his natural calling -- think of Catch Me If You Can -- but his energy here is not just fun, it's discovery," said David Thompson of The New Republic.

"Scorsese unleashes a furious, yet exquisitely controlled, kinetic energy, complete with a plunging and soaring camera, mercurial and conspicuous special effects, counterfactual scenes, subjective fantasies, and swirling choreography on a grand scale," wrote the New Yorker.

Watch the Wolf of Wall Street trailer:

"Though "Raging Bull" must still go down as Martin Scorsese's greatest achievement, "The Wolf of Wall Street" makes the race for No. 2 a lot more interesting," said Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle.

"As with Goodfellas, Scorsese's helpless attraction to the very behavior he wants to indict becomes the movie's serrated edge," said J.R Jones of the Chicago Reader.

"Man, does this movie have a savage bite," wrote Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times.

The Wolf of Wall Street hits theaters in the UK on Friday (January 17, 2014). Go see it.