Climbing Higher Pictures

You don’t have to have seen Wall Street to appreciate this film. It’s been 20 years since the original, the exact same amount of time that Gordon Gekko was supposedly behind bars for insider trading. He’s getting out right in the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression. If this doesn’t sound like a perfect time for another Wall Street film, I dunno what is.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A-

It’s been a long time since Oliver Stone has made a legitimately good movie. Sure W may have had its moments, and World Trade Center wasn’t insulting to the victims of the families involved with 9/11. Alexander, however… you don’t really need me to go on. Point is, we haven’t had a Platoon since, well, Platoon, and the original Wall Street always seemed ripe for a sequel… right? Right? Actually, this may be one of the few recent Hollywood sequels I can fully get behind. Why? Because it’s actually been 20 years since the first film, and Gordon Gekko was put away for that amount of time at the end of the original Wall Street for insider trading. Now it’s no longer “insider trading” reigning king in the pantheon of corruption terminology. “Sub-prime mortgages” have taken its place, thanks to the recent economic collapse. The sequel takes place during that same moment of upheaval, and is one of the best uses of an established character and franchise to discuss real world issues that I’ve ever seen.

So yes, the film is incredibly topical. Not only does it address the crash itself, but it puts well known faces on the shadowy corporate execs who managed to bring the world to its knees. It could have very easily devolved into a dumbed down history lesson ripped straight from the headlines, instead it humanizes these people in a way the media never could. They are greedy, evil men who make Gekko look like a saint by comparison. That’s kind of the point. No matter how much you thought you could hate the average stockbroker, it has nothing on the banking executives who gambled away people’s life savings.

This allows Michael Douglas to play a man who is both likeable and ruthless, without forcing him into the harsh light of judgment. He did his time, he’s come out a little worse for the wear, but none of these guys will ever see the inside of a jail cell… or so we think. The story makes for a great corporate yarn like we haven’t had in long time, and despite the apparent ease with which money is moved around and threats are carried out, it never seems too simple. You believe that there is a lot of complex stuff happening behind the scenes, but respect the fact that Stone doesn’t think you need to get knee deep in stock jargon to understand the human narrative. In this way, he keeps the dialogue fast and witty, while exposing the callous underbelly of the system in the process.

Now we come to the most common complaint when people see a preview for this, and several other recent films. Guys, stop being overly judgmental for a second. Shia LaBeouf isn’t a bad actor. He’s not. In fact, he’s able to give genuinely down to earth performances when paired with a good director. Every film you’ve ever hated him in has a lot more to do with the film and the character he’s playing than the actual work he’s doing, and the Shia-bashing is getting really boring. He’s great here, and his scenes with Douglas serve as the backbone for the entire film. In a lot of ways, he’s subbing in for Charlie Sheen, but in a much more youthful and energetic way. Having an older Gekko makes the mentoring relationship feel even stronger, and you’ll find yourself grinning as Douglas takes the young punk to school in front of your eyes. Carey Mulligan also puts in solid work here, though you should check out Never Let Me Go for her real acting chops. She has some great emotional scenes with both LaBeouf and Douglas, but my only real complaint is that the characters seem to jump to a heightened emotional state pretty rapidly. It makes sense for people wound this tight, but the tears come a little too fast and furiously to be truly genuine.

In the long run, this is an incredibly well orchestrated film. It never hits awkward snags in pacing or dialogue, flows incredibly well, and even makes me eat my own words when it comes to fade-to-blacks never, ever working in a movie. Here they serve as nice chapter breaks and a chance for the audience to catch their breath, maintaining the sense that the filmmaker is in no rush to fit the story into the walls of an allotted runtime. The movie is just over two hours, but you lose track of the clock as you watch it all play out, and it all feels great. The ending may be seen as a little iffy, if only because the film could have had an incredibly brutal and depressing finale. It could’ve been heart-wrenching, and I thought they might have been willing to go that far. Instead, it remembers that it’s entertainment in the last 15 minutes, and you know something, I don’t mind at all. Call it a Hollywood ending, but it’s a Hollywood movie, and I can give it high marks for keeping this kind of project grounded for such an extended period of time. I don’t want another economic collapse to happen for justification, but I’d definitely be down for a Wall Street 3. This is one sequel that has good reason to exist.