Movie review – “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010) **

I wanted to like this movie more than I did. A sequel to Wall Street was a great idea – Gordon Gekko out of prison after years, making a comeback; the world of finance was as hot a topic as ever; the basic set up is full of intrigue: Gekko has a daughter whose stockbroker fiancée falls under the web of Gekko. But the film makes too many wrong decisions and is too much like a movie – no one acts like real people. And it doesn’t even succeed on a wish-fulfilment level, because no one seems to have a really awesome time.

 

For starters, there’s Shai le Bouf’s character. He’s meant to be a “good” stock broker – environmentally conscious, pretty much clean-living (he gets drunk once but no coke or hookers), loves his girl, smart, promotes fusion technology (the film goes on and on about this), he only dabbles with Gekko to get revenge for his mentor. Yeah, right. Thing is, his mentor was a billionaire stockbroker – he should have been able to take care of himself. And the way he was “brought down” by Josh Brolin wasn’t that tricky, just standard ruthless business tactics. And no one made him kill himself. Gekko’s character at least has the old ruthlessness, but he’s soft too – I didn’t buy the ending (it is poignant to hear him talk about a son who had a drug overdose).

 

The cameo with Bud Fox just felt wrong, wrong, wrong – having him turn up with two beautiful blondes, having made millions from turning Blue Star airlines into a jet brokerage business then retired… that doesn’t sound like the Bud Fox from the first film. Or a particularly interesting character. It just sounds like Charlie Sheen’s idea of heaven.

 

And the Carey Mulligan role is nothing – I mean, nothing. I think Oliver Stone has listened to criticism of his female characters so there are no whores or sluts, and there are women doing jobs, but instead he’s given Mulligan this cipher to play – she’s a nice girl who loves her guy and is resentful to her father and runs a website. That’s nothing, certainly not a third lead. Why not have her as a ruthless business type, or a psycho or at least complex? Was Oliver Stone trying to make amends with his own daughter here? The finale, where an article on a website brings down a finance tycoon, smacks of Hollywood – that never happens.

 

There are some good bits, like Gekko being ignored when he comes back, and Susan Sarandon’s greedy real estate agent who’s a drain on le Bouf. This feels real. But there’s too little of it, and the film goes for two hours.