Fresh Reviews: "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"

Rated PG-13 for strong language and sexual situations.

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The original 1987 "Wall Street" commented on and illustrated its time better than almost any movie I can think of. Oliver Stone was unafraid to make the film a virtual polemic about everything he thought was wrong with the system at that time, and it resulted in a surprisingly powerful movie for a big studio commercial release, even giving Charlie Sheen one of the few opportunities he had to shine as an actor before descending into the depths of "Two And A Half Men". Now, 23 years later, in a society beset by financial wizards/villains like Bernard Madoff and Jack Abramoff, we have the sequel arriving just at the time that would seem perfect for it. That's the key part of that sentence there... "would seem".

After a brief opening where we see Gordon Gekko being released from prison in 2001, we jump forward to 2008 and the economic collapse. Gekko isn't quite the financial king he once was: he lives in rather humble quarters, derives most of his money from his popular book "Is Greed Good?" and from speaking engagements, and in general doesn't seem to be quite the energetic viper he once was, even criticizing current Wall Street luminaries for "going too far". But a rising young wall street type (played by Shia Lebeouf) still idolizes him and wants to bond... at least in part because he's engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter, who won't even watch her father on TV. Is Gecko really a changed man? His daughter insists he's only hiding the fangs until the right moment...

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is not by any means a BAD movie, but compared to the power of the original, it has roughly the impact of a slap with one wet noodle. You find yourself hoping desperately that Gekko is really still evil, because as a "changed man" he's incredibly dull and boring. Douglas doesn't even seem to have any enthusiasm for playing him that way, and you eventually have to realize that even if he turns out to be the same old Gordon, it will be so late in the movie that it won't matter anymore. Lebeouf doesn't have anywhere near the character or intensity of Charlie Sheen, either (and what does THAT say about him?) in a role roughly equivalent to Sheen's. When Sheen actually shows up for a brief cameo, meeting Douglas at a high society party, he wipes both Douglas and Lebeouf off the screen.

Lebeouf's character is supposed to be trying to get financing for a fusion-energy company he's supporting, against the wishes of most of the staff of his firm. In theory, this is supposed to be generating most of the movie's suspense, as he tries to get his future father-in-law to join in his efforts, but the unimaginative, uninvolving script never works up much drama in this regard. It certainly doesn't help that director Stone has farmed out the actual writing duties to other screenwriters: why in the world would Oliver Stone wait 23 years to make a sequel to probably the most personal movie of his entire career and then have someone else write it? The new writers just don't have the emotional involvement and commitment to this story and the Wall Street scene (Stone's father was a stockbroker) and it shows. And if the writers don't care, how can they make the audience care?

I'm more than a little puzzled, as well, as to why so many opportunities were missed for some pointed barbs about specific wrongs in the system, the way the first movie did. I mean really, people... we've had Abramoff, Madoff, even businessmen like the Twin Cities' Tom Petters... that's a veritable wealth of material that could make for an amazing movie with some strong points about how we let a basically good system go so far astray. Instead, what we have is a not terribly interesting story that's not based on any particular part of the real world we can recognize, with a lead character who isn't all that much like the "real" Gordon Gekko. Which leads me to the movie's one exception: Josh Brolin, so memorable in recent movies like "No Country For Old Men" and "Milk", is terriffic once again as a Wall Street bad guy who's everything Gekko used to be and then some. Lebeouf's briefly working for him doesn't really call up any parallels to Sheen and Douglas (due to Lebeouf's performance), but it's still great to see an actor command the screen with the kind of malevolence and intensity that few can command. If only the movie had been mainly about him. But Brolin does seem to be slowly and quietly becoming one of the best in the business at playing morally bankrupt characters.

Oliver Stone still knows too much about the essentials of movie making to just churn out a completely piece of garbage. The technical aspects of this movie are flawless, and of course as I mentioned there is Brolin. But there's also the painful spectacle of recent Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, so great in "An Education", struggling to find some way to make her underwritten character stand out. Oliver Stone should never again direct a movie that he didn't write. Seriously. In my Hubpages piece "What Makes A Good Movie?", number one on the list is passion... the direct personal vision of one person. "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" could have been one of the strongest movies of the year if it had that kind of vision. But instead it's just another great original that gets worn down by a trip through the old sequel machine. I really do think that Stone is still capable of greatness. But he needs to care enough again to get involved in the entire process. Maybe next time? In the meantime, money might never sleep, but audience members might.