Money never sleeps on Wall Street
OLIVER Stone's "new" film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Wall Street (1987), was always going to be held up against its predecessor.
FILM REVIEW: WALL STREET — MONEY NEVER SLEEPS
Rating: **
OLIVER Stone’s new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Wall Street (1987), was always going to be held up against its predecessor, which, with the benefit of hindsight, has become a guilty-pleasure classic.
When the original hit the screens more than two decades ago, it was met with a lukewarm response from critics, many of who found Stone’s bombast and penchant for melodrama overwrought. It was, however, a box-office smash and as the grotesque indulgence that defined the ’80s disappeared further into the rear view mirror, Wall Street’s legend grew.
So when moral hazard — a term used in the latest film to describe bankers who gamble with money that isn’t theirs — lack of regulation and corporate greed set in motion a cataclysmic series of events that led to the collapse of the global economy, Stone felt the time was right to trot out an updated version of his cautionary allegory.
It’s impossible to say whether the follow-up, starring Michael Douglas as the ruthless arbitrageur Gordon Gekko, Shia LaBeouf (Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and rising star Carey Mulligan (An Education, Brothers) will benefit similarly from hindsight, but one wouldn’t be going out on too flimsy a limb to say there is almost no chance.
Released from jail in 2001 after an eight-year stint for insider trading, Wall Street legend Gordon Gekko sets about restoring his place at the top of the investment banking food chain.
Fast-forward to 2008, and Gekko is on the speaking circuit, warning against the perils of speculation and leveraged debt, which eventually lead to the collapse of the financial markets. LaBeouf plays Jake Moore, a young, idealistic energy trader.
He is engaged to left-wing blogger and daughter of Gekko Winnie (Mulligan), who is estranged from her father and blames him for the suicide of her brother.
Moore’s seemingly perfect world of huge bonuses, New York lofts and $2000 suits is thrown into turmoil when the investment bank he works for is obliterated thanks to the nefarious workings of banking heavyweight Bretton James, played by the always brilliant Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, Milk).
The collapse of the bank (based on failed investment firm Lehman Brothers) causes its head, and Moore’s father-figure/mentor‚ to suicide, leading the young banker to engage his future father-in-law to help him exact revenge.
Stone shows a flagrant disregard for subtlety in this gaudy melodrama, with imagery of dominoes collapsing in slow motion and bubbles bursting‚ as young children play in the park, unaware the end is nigh.
There is a misplaced sense of occasion here too, as Stone concerns himself with proudly trumpeting the triumphant return of the seminal scoundrel he graced us with all those years ago. Gordon Gekko deserves more.
The character is one of a handful of things that work in the new film. His willful disregard for sentimentality and appetite for grotesque extravagance is part of what made Wall Street great.
But there is precious little of this and the film’s inexcusably saccharin ending erases any of the goodwill.
The is a smattering of fine moments, in particular, the scenes depicting the collapse of the markets. The heady panic and gravitas are suitably foreboding and recall the actual collapse in September 2008.
But, like a mortgage backed security or collateralised debt obligation, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a tarted up non-entity that lacks any sort of substance.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is screening nationally.
Reviewed by Adam Kamien
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