Wall Street Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Allen Loeb, Stephen Schiff
Starring Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella, Shia LeBeouf
Release Date September 24th, 2010
Published September 23rd, 2010
Director Oliver Stone has long been a fearsome critic of Wall Street greed. His Frankenstein character Gordon Gekko from 1987's “Wall Street” was meant as a stinging rebuke of Wall Street greed but became the progenitor of a new generation of real life Wall Street sharks who idolized Gekko's 'Greed is Good' philosophy.
More than 20 years later Stone looked set to take on Wall Street again as massive financial machines came crashing down before the government stepped in to save them. The financial meltdown seemed to provide the perfect background for the return of Gordon Gekko and an opportunity for Stone to provide the ultimate artistic polemic damning the Greed is Good generation. So what happened?
“Wall Street” Money Never Sleeps” stars Shia LeBeouf, picking up on the Wall Street wunderkind role essayed by Charlie Sheen in the original “Wall Street.” Shia is Jacob Moore, a 20 something who has risen fast at a powerful banking firm that stands on the verge of collapse. His mentor, the company CEO (Frank Langella), has leveraged the company on a lot of bad debt.
In a mirror image of Lehman Brothers, the company collapses and the rest of Wall Street rushes in to pick the bones. Soon, Jacob's mentor has taken his own life and Jacob is looking for revenge against the snake-like CEO of a rival company, Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who was responsible for his company’s downfall.
Jacob happens to have an unlikely ace in the hole; he's engaged to Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), daughter of disgraced but re-emerging Wall Street titan Gordon Gekko. With a new book coming out and prison in his rearview mirror, Gekko too is in the revenge business, seeking the people who helped send him to prison. Seeing that he and Jacob may have a common enemy, Gekko offers sage advice and inside information all the while poking the kid to help repair Gekko's strained relationship with his daughter.
It is in the private lives of Jacob and Winnie where “Wall Street” Money Never Sleeps” goes awry. Carey Mulligan is a wonderful actress, always very compelling but here she is reduced to whiny caricature and plot creation. Winnie Gekko doesn't exist fully as a stand alone character and whenever she's onscreen you are left longing for what's happening in the boardrooms and backrooms where the billions of dollars are changing hand.
Director Oliver Stone, unfortunately, uses the relationship stuff as a place to hide from the Wall Street stuff. Where audiences come in expecting the controversial director to come out swinging against Wall Street greed monsters, we are shocked to find how often Stone turns tail and runs to the softer ground of father daughter and boyfriend girlfriend melodrama.
Yes, the relationship stuff does tie back to the main plot but it's more distracting than compelling. Josh Brolin and Frank Langella provide the film's best scenes as they battle for the soul of Wall Street and the politics of money within the walls of the Federal Reserve building. In Langella we see the failed dream of the honest man and in Brolin the mindless consumption that nearly drowned us all.
These scenes are achingly compelling and offer a glimpse of the Wall Street sequel many felt we would be getting. Sadly, it is only a glimpse as LeBoeuf's Jacob is never remotely compelling as Langella's sad mentor character. Once Langella is gone, Brolin and Douglas suck the air out and leave LeBeouf gasping in their wake, unable to support the edgy, critical side of Wall Street that we thought we were getting.
It's fair to theorize that LeBeoef's cypher like performance may be why Stone backed off on the more biting and dangerous critiques of modern day Wall Street. Lebeouf simply couldn't carry the weight. Stuck with him, Stone reverts to the romance and family plots, kicking in Susan Sarandon as Jacob's mom for extra help, and leaving “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” shockingly soporific.
As for the return of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko he is sadly trapped by director Oliver Stone's wimping out. Gekko could have been, should have been the ultimate rebuke, the hammer that came crashing down on modern Wall Street greed. Instead, Gordon Gekko is softened and chastened by the need for the love of his daughter. Stone does well to isolate Gekko into his own plot and evoke the things we remember from the original “Wall Street,” but I can't be the only one who was hoping for something more than mere nostalgia.
For whatever reason, Oliver Stone pulled up short in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” either unwilling or unable to pull the trigger on the kind of crushing polemic that many had hoped the ultra-left wing director would deliver upon the criminals who robbed America and left the economy in tatters for their own gain.
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