Film Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Rated M. 133 minutes. Directed by Oliver Stone. Written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff.

The allure of riches associated with a career as a corporate high-flyer on New York’s Wall Street were perfectly encapsulated in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987). Michael Douglas won the Best Actor Oscar® for his performance as the unscrupulous market manipulator and corporate raider Gordon Gekko, whose motto “greed is good” was almost immediately enshrined in the global financial services vernacular.

Fast forward to 2008 – and Gordon is being released from prison where he has served time for insider trading. In a mastertroke of contextualisation, the possessions he had to hand over when he entered prison are returned – and his “gold money clip with no money in it” and “one mobile phone” say it all. The financial world (and the world at large) he re-enters are vastly different but eerily similar beasts to the ones he left behind. His daughter Winnie (the stunning Carey Mulligan) is running a “lefty website” and enjoying the beginnings of a relationship with young gun Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf in top form), who is determined to kick some serious goals in the big money stakes. The next generation of ‘Gordon Gekkos’ is represented by the steel-framed Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who has learned nothing from history – and it is this character (and his like) who Stone holds directly to account for what we now know as the Global Financial Crisis.

As a director, Stone’s curiosity is forensic (no more exemplified than in his Vietnam War masterpiece Platoon), and it is precisely this kind of attention to detail that makes this Wall Street sequel absolutely engrossing. His passion for detail is equally-matched by the ensemble of superb performances he elicits from the outstanding cast, who all attack the urgency of the work with absolute flair, skill and dedication. Their characters’ egos, ambitions and aspirations are flawlessly realised, with Susan Sarandon shining in a small role as young Jake’s mother. Her dalliance with the real estate market that suddenly begins to collapse around her, is deeply-affecting, as is the decline and death of Jake’s old-school mentor Louis Zabel (the brilliant Frank Langella). It is in these characters, in particular, that Loeb and Schiff’s powerhouse of a screenplay delves into the real private and personal horrors resulting from the sudden and terrifying collapse of the once all-powerful American economy and the rapidly disintegrating ‘American Dream’ in all its seductive guises.

Pictured: Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.