After a 23-year wait Oliver Stone has made his first sequel ever to his 1987 film Wall Street. With recent events involving the banking crisis, sub-prime mortgages and toxic debt a film with Gordon Gekko is timely.
Set in 2008 just before and during the financial crisis Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a ambitious young trader who specialised in investing alternative energy. He lives with Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), who runs a left-wing website and has a hostile relationship with her father, Gordon (Michael Douglas). When Jacob's bank collapses, his mentor and father figure Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) kills himself when he is humiliated by the head of another bank, Bretton James (Josh Brolin). Gordon Gekko starts to predict the impending banking crisis and Jacob turns to the old banker for help. Jacob promises to help Gekko get back in touch with his daughter and Gekko and give Gekko would give the young man the dirt on James. But James promises that he can help Jacob get the investment a company making fusion energy.
Gordon Gekko was one of the most iconic characters of the 1980s and one of Douglas most well known roles. He was a symbol of the 80s, about the idea of making a shed lot of money from investing in other businesses. He is a figure of love or hate depending on your views on the stock market and the Reganite economic system. In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps he is now a antihero, who works with Jacob to bring down the worst elements of the new banking system where debt was sold in a way to avoid 'risk', but really just masking a problem. Douglas really dominates the role and was the key to the film, someone who does get down and dirty but Stone and the writers do try to humanise him. But Gekko is best when he is his old self. Still Douglas is best thing about the film.
Stone recruits a good cast: Mulligan, Brolin and Susan Sarandon. But it was LaBeouf who is the star of film. He is obviously trying to show he is more then the star of the Transformers film and he actually starring in a prestige picture. He gives a solid performance and he will properly will become a better actor then Megan Fox (who star is already declining). There were some really good flashes from LaBeouf like when he is upset over Lou's death, but he was wooden at other times. Mulligan gives a very good performance and her American accent was flawless. And well, Brolin has been a strong actor for a years and his performance was good.
Stone had an interesting approach to directing this film: the camera work that Rodrigo Prieto used was effective, moving at the camera at just the right time to reflect an emotion or keep a scene of continuity. Some people have complained that Stone should not have put numbers flash on the screen or using split screen but I feel it adds to the sense of the work in a investment bank. Though it was weird in one scene where Jacob takes a phone call in and the person on the other ends comes up as a bubble on top of Winnie's head in a almost cartoon like way. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is also a film had to make visual, with a lot of computer graphics being use and the show of how fusion energy would work: making the film look like something from a Saturday morning sci-fi cartoon. Stone also had to add a motorbike chase just to make something more exciting. The film is too long and slow at times, whilst the ending and final third felt rushed, unrealistic and hokey in a typical Hollywood fashion.
Stone does try and make banking an interest and it is a good commentary of the banking crisis. But nowadays most stockbrokers are just men and women who stare at figures on a computer screen and trading invisible stocks, not caring or knowing how it affects people. Stone could have shown more about how bankers ended up going to the government for help to allow them to survive and then rewarded themselves with a nice big bonus with public money. Mark Kermode mention that one of the big themes of Wall Street was that there was a conflict between people who made money to people who made thing: in the sequel a similar theme, involving invest in things that involve the lives of people and society to other men and women who just look for a quick buck rather then look at the long term game. It is possible for people to make more money from a long term investment. As a environmentalist I want to see oil company collapse very quickly when alternatives are viable.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps will mostly appeal to people are interested in economics and banking, but there is enough there for other people.
Set in 2008 just before and during the financial crisis Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a ambitious young trader who specialised in investing alternative energy. He lives with Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), who runs a left-wing website and has a hostile relationship with her father, Gordon (Michael Douglas). When Jacob's bank collapses, his mentor and father figure Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) kills himself when he is humiliated by the head of another bank, Bretton James (Josh Brolin). Gordon Gekko starts to predict the impending banking crisis and Jacob turns to the old banker for help. Jacob promises to help Gekko get back in touch with his daughter and Gekko and give Gekko would give the young man the dirt on James. But James promises that he can help Jacob get the investment a company making fusion energy.
Gordon Gekko was one of the most iconic characters of the 1980s and one of Douglas most well known roles. He was a symbol of the 80s, about the idea of making a shed lot of money from investing in other businesses. He is a figure of love or hate depending on your views on the stock market and the Reganite economic system. In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps he is now a antihero, who works with Jacob to bring down the worst elements of the new banking system where debt was sold in a way to avoid 'risk', but really just masking a problem. Douglas really dominates the role and was the key to the film, someone who does get down and dirty but Stone and the writers do try to humanise him. But Gekko is best when he is his old self. Still Douglas is best thing about the film.
Stone recruits a good cast: Mulligan, Brolin and Susan Sarandon. But it was LaBeouf who is the star of film. He is obviously trying to show he is more then the star of the Transformers film and he actually starring in a prestige picture. He gives a solid performance and he will properly will become a better actor then Megan Fox (who star is already declining). There were some really good flashes from LaBeouf like when he is upset over Lou's death, but he was wooden at other times. Mulligan gives a very good performance and her American accent was flawless. And well, Brolin has been a strong actor for a years and his performance was good.
Stone had an interesting approach to directing this film: the camera work that Rodrigo Prieto used was effective, moving at the camera at just the right time to reflect an emotion or keep a scene of continuity. Some people have complained that Stone should not have put numbers flash on the screen or using split screen but I feel it adds to the sense of the work in a investment bank. Though it was weird in one scene where Jacob takes a phone call in and the person on the other ends comes up as a bubble on top of Winnie's head in a almost cartoon like way. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is also a film had to make visual, with a lot of computer graphics being use and the show of how fusion energy would work: making the film look like something from a Saturday morning sci-fi cartoon. Stone also had to add a motorbike chase just to make something more exciting. The film is too long and slow at times, whilst the ending and final third felt rushed, unrealistic and hokey in a typical Hollywood fashion.
Stone does try and make banking an interest and it is a good commentary of the banking crisis. But nowadays most stockbrokers are just men and women who stare at figures on a computer screen and trading invisible stocks, not caring or knowing how it affects people. Stone could have shown more about how bankers ended up going to the government for help to allow them to survive and then rewarded themselves with a nice big bonus with public money. Mark Kermode mention that one of the big themes of Wall Street was that there was a conflict between people who made money to people who made thing: in the sequel a similar theme, involving invest in things that involve the lives of people and society to other men and women who just look for a quick buck rather then look at the long term game. It is possible for people to make more money from a long term investment. As a environmentalist I want to see oil company collapse very quickly when alternatives are viable.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps will mostly appeal to people are interested in economics and banking, but there is enough there for other people.