TITLE: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
STARRING: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella
DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone
STUDIO: 20^th Century Fox
RATING: R
RUN TIME: 136 min
RELEASE DATE: September 24

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

The character of Gordon Gekko is one of those rare film characters that defined a whole generation of people. The 80’s yuppies found their hero in Michael Douglas’ amoral Wall Street trader who would go to any lengths to make a profit. Over 20 years later, Gordon Gekko is back on the silver screen, but is this icon of the 1980’s still relevant? You bet.

Following his arrest in the first film, Gekko (Douglas) is released from prison to a world where his daughter, Winnie (Mulligan), despises him, and his philosophy “greed is good” is out of control. Enter Jacob (LaBeouf ), an idealistic broker who is engaged to Winnie and wants revenge against a rival broker (Brolin) who drove his mentor (Langella) to kill himself. Gekko teaches Jacob how to get revenge while using him to get back in his daughter’s good graces, but is that all that Gekko really wants?

This movie could not have come out at a better time, the number one issue in this country is the economy, and not many people seem to understand how it could have crashed. This movie is about the all for nothing insanity that has existed since the beginning of the 21^st century and has ended up handicapping the economy of not just America, but the whole world.  Every character in this film tries to make obscene amounts of money, and destroy potentially successful companies that could change the world to make an easy buck.

Director Oliver Stone tries to throw in as many examples of the flaws in our economic system as he can in this movie, some miss big and some work really well. The inner workings of hedge funds and the institutions of Wall Street provide a perspective on the 2008 crash, and that really is where the action and drama of this film is. There is also a subplot about Jacob’s attempts to get an alternative energy company off the ground that adds some perspective on the business side of an issue that will grow in importance over the next 10 years.

While things such as Susan Sarandon’s role as Jacob’s mother, who is taking out loans for homes with money she does not have in the hopes of selling them for a profit, adds a personal and relatable way for the audience to experience the film’s view of the crash, it is not executed well and is very annoying.

Photo from rottentomatoes.com.

The performances in this movie are its strongest aspects. There are a lot of people who hate LaBeouf’s acting, but to be fair his most memorable role is in the Transformers movies and Michael Bay movies are not exactly known for superb acting. But in this film, LaBeouf does a good job as an idealist trying to fix the world in a system that is focused on the money and he holds his own against all the other extremely talented performers in this movie. Every actor in this film does an excellent job, but Douglas is still the real standout. Gekko is still the same master manipulator and charmer that he was in the first movie, but he shows real growth due to what his character experienced in the story. He still wants to be a big player in the end is utterly obsessed with money, but he is tempered due to his time in prison and is torn between his greed and his desire for a family.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a good film that does an excellent job of conveying the facts and the feelings of everyone in this country during the beginning of the economic crash, but the ending and the tone of this movie as we near the end hold it back from being a far more important film. The tone towards the end is pretty positive given what has happened earlier in the movie, and the ending seems is almost too happy considering what we’ve seen. It takes away from what came before it and it was so sweet it made me sick.

This won’t be the film that truly defines our economic crisis, but it is a worthy sequel to a great first film and it still has a number of important points about our economy, our society and where we are possibly going.

RATING: 8/10