Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Certified: 12
Duration: 127 minutes
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan
KRS release
The 1987 film Wall Street is one of my favourite pictures of the 1980s. Having watched it again recently, I can say that it is still very relevant today. With Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, director Oliver Stone returns to the scene of the crime and Michael Douglas is back with another powerful performance as Gordon Gekko. This film however shows us different dimensions to his character and is almost nostalgic in certain moments.
The title of Money Never Sleeps coupled with the “greed” theme couldn’t have been timelier as we are now witnessing the effects of the financial mess that the world has been pitted into. The state of the world is not good, and Mr Stone knows this too well. His mastery lies in how he delivers his story and how he subtly manipulates what we might believe and our emotions at what is happening on screen.
In the sequel, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is released from prison after serving a sentence for what he did in the first movie. He comes out to find a changed world, where no one wants to know about him. However, eight years later he writes a bestseller and goes on tour promoting it, becoming a hero along the way!
Jacob “Jake” Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a high flyer at a Wall Street corporation. He is the boyfriend of Winnie (Carey Mulligan), the estranged daughter of Gekko. Soon Gekko and Jake are seemingly propelled towards each other as Jake ends up following his icon but losing his girlfriend. Meanwhile, the people occupying the top posts in Wall Street are changing continuously… just look at the way Bretton James (Josh Brolin) gets rid of Jake’s mentor (an exquisite Frank Langella).
The film reeks of cash, corruption, power, euphoria and a multitude of other feelings. The scenes in which heads of corporations meet, are portrayed as gangster gatherings like in The Godfather. Mr Stone also delves into government bailouts and leads one to wonder the why of such bailouts especially when the companies were being so badly mismanaged.
Mr LaBeouf is intense, strong and shows that he maturing as an actor. Ms Mulligan is simply luminous and once again delivers a good performance after her provoking turn in last year’s An Education.
Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko seems like a fox walking among chickens. The sequence where he meets Charlie Sheen from the first film is simply priceless, reeking of exquisite tongue-in-cheek. However, as the film’s ending shows, Gekko has changed, maybe he is a bit more mellow in his approach. This is almost a reflection of the director himself; the feel-good ending maybe a sign that Mr Stone could be becoming less of an unforgiving director in his political views.