Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas hit the money lined Wall Street once again. Douglas, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1987 classic, reprises the greedy Gordon Gekko.

The film takes place 23 years after the original, focusing on the beginning of the two-year recession occurring in the United States.

Joining Michael Douglas is the young star Shia LaBeouf (“Transformers”) and the versatile Josh Brolin (“No Country for Old Men”).

LaBeouf plays a young stockbroker Jacob “Jake” Moore who loses his mentor early in the film. Brolin plays opposite him as the antagonist Bretton James, a hedge fund manager who, Jake suspects, is responsible for his mentor’s death.

Carey Mulligan (“An Education”) plays Winnie Gekko, Gordon’s daughter and becomes his motivation for helping Jake solve his hedge fund manager problem.

Unlike the first film, Douglas is not supposed to be a villain. Instead, he plays the role of a flaky father figure to Jake. The film promises Stone’s usual talent of taking the characters to both extremes of happiness and sadness.

It is set to release Sept. 24 on a wide release. ?

Wall Street (1987)

★★★★★

This is the film that forever cemented Michael Douglas’ suave and slipper smile into our minds. The actor won the Academy Award in 1987 for his role as Gordon Gekko, the Wall Street master.

Oliver Stone directed this film in the realistic and grainy way that we have come to expect from him.

Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen and Daryl Hannah also star in the picture. Charlie Sheen plays the role of Bud Fox, a young dreamer that never quite made it. He longs to emulate Gekko and his success.

After 39 attempts to meet with his idol, Fox offers him cigars and secrets on Gekko’s birthday. Gekko becomes a mentor to Fox and sets him up with the good life. There is one catch, however; Fox is required to steal secrets from his dad, played by his real-life father, Martin Sheen.

Hannah plays the “love” interest for Fox, but it would be better to call her a sex interest because the movie clearly plays that the only thing that matters to anyone is money.

After traversing the wild ride that only Stone could create, Fox finds himself in every kind of bad situation imaginable, with a shadow creeping over him, silhouetted in Gekko’s cigar smoke.

This is a classic, must see for anyone who has ever been curious about some of the unscrupulous people who manage our money market. In a time where a recession is only a block behind us, “Wall Street” proves to still be a valuable cultural commentary.

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