Rating: PG
Running Time: 127mins
Release Date: 23 September 2010
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the sequel to the 1987 film Wall Street by director Oliver Stone, in his first ever sequel. The film follows the prison release of disgraced Wall Street Trader Gordon Gekko just before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) which forms the setting for this story. Michael Douglas reprises his Academy Award winning role as Gekko who attempts to redeem himself and warn Wall Street of the next stock market crash with the real estate asset bubble about to burst on the back of risky over lending by Wall Street fuelling overextended borrowing by Main Street. His daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) blames Gekko for her brother Rudy’s suicide and refuses to acknowledge him, but her fiance, Wall Street Trader, Jake (Shia LaBeouf) inspite of this initiates contact with Gekko. Jake, grieving the recent suicide of his mentor Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella) following Keller Zabel’s financial collapse after a sell down on shares on the back of rumours is out for revenge. Gekko is happy to point him in the direction of rival hedge fund manager Bretton James (Josh Brolin) in return for Jake assisting him repair his relationship with Winnie.
This film promises so much but just doesn’t quite deliver. Stone appears to have taken to playing safe in his advancing years so there is no real firepower in this story. It has a few credibility gaps as it is hard to swallow the fact that Winnie would fall in love with a Wall Street guy almost the very incarnation of her family destroying father. Their reason for being together should have developed a bit more to overcome this. Jake’s character also seemed a bit thin and LaBeouf is a bit weak and out of his depth with this role. Carey Mulligan (An Education) had to adopt an American accent and she does well to portray her simple supporting character. Michael Douglas is a fine actor but the role of Gekko is all over the place and doesn’t appear to stand for anything. There are a few cameos thrown in which actually detracts from the seriousness of the film, such as Charlie Sheen reprising Bud Fox in a truly cringeworthy scene. Eli Wallach plays a Federal Reserve Board Executive making doomsday predictions followed by silly whistling sounds. Oliver Stone also makes a brief appearance in his own movie. Susan Sarandon appears as Jake’s greedy but misguided mother in a solid performance as does Josh Brolin as the “millenial version” of Gekko.
Written by Stephen Schiff and screenplay by Allan Loeb it fails to get down to the real heart of the GFC and the ongoing pain and aftermath that has been wreaked. The ending is nice and touchy feely with a hint of a return to core values but you know no one has really learnt those last lessons. The scenes of those metaphoric bubbles floating around were just so obvious to the point of annoying. However after all the shortcomings it was mildly entertaining.
3/5 stars
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