Wall Street is the modern version of the competitions between Greece and Rome.
With
astonishing timing, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has arrived on wings
of slime. Director Oliver Stone has unfurled his second movie about the money
traders at the very moment they have undivided global attention. In a world
awash in acronyms that long ago surpassed the understanding of ordinary
investors, the players of Wall Street tend their own bottom line - some playing
within the rules, others indulging in outright thievery and manipulation. This
is a game played by men who see life and business in terms of metaphors. Wall
Street is the modern version of the competitions of Greece and Rome, and Oliver
Stone loves this playing field.
Gordon Gekko,
predator extraordinaire, is back. With instincts sharpened, not rusted, by eight
years in jail, he returns to Wall Street ready to soak up the tips and insider
information that will inform his decisions. In a lecture to a room full of
aspirants, he warns that greed is "a systemic, global, malignant disease" that
is endemic to bankers, traders, and investors alike. Michael Douglas inhabits
Gekko's oily skin so thoroughly that it's hard to think of him as anyone else,
on screen or off.
In a move
designed to let us know that there can be another side to all the duplicity,
Stone dwells on Winnie, Gekko's daughter (Carey Mulligan), a young idealist who
is disgusted by everything her father has done. She lives, on again, off again,
with Jake (Shia LaBeouf), a trader with a conveniently idealistic bent toward
financing green projects. Will Jake fall to the ethic of his new boss Bretton
James (Josh Brolin) or to the values of his mentor Louis Zabel, the elder
statesman/founder of his firm? Frank Langella is memorable as the beaten man who
tries to hold back the tide, but can't.
Oliver Stone
and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto capture beautifully the atmosphere of three
areas of the culture of Manhattan that help its machinery run: the elaborate,
blinking tapestry of the island surrounded on all sides by wondrous river
traffic; the rows of trading room computers manned by the aspiring young on cell
phones ringing with rumor; and powerful men in black climbing the grand stone
steps to a benefit dinner at the Met, each with an ornamental woman on his arm.
The Met has never looked more beautiful.
On the
downside, clichés (the motorcycle race) in an otherwise smart script are
jarring. Shia LaBeouf, while likable, hasn't quite the presence to hold his own
in this company (except in some razzle dazzle dealing with the Chinese) while
Carey Mulligan can hold her own anywhere. Look for a fine cameo by Susan
Sarandon as Jake's insatiable mother. Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs are
thinly disguised villains.
"It's not
about power; it's the game," says Gekko. But within that game it's all about
speed - of communication, of ascension, of the accumulation of power. All this
action plus a very hot topic equals one colorful, king-size entertainment.
Copyright (c) Illusion