Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (20th Century Fox)
Money Never Bores Either
Movies that focus on the search for money or the loss of money never seem to bore audiences. We are all fascinated by the rise and fall of other people. In Wall Street audiences got to watch the fall of Gordon Gekko. In the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps they get to see him rise. Happy days are here again!
The movie opens with Gekko (Michael Douglas) being released from prison. He is a man on his own with no one arriving to even pick him up and take him home. Flash forward eight years later and Gekko has written a book and is beginning to surface around the fringes of the life he once knew.
Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is also an up and comer. His mentor, Wall Street legend Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), has steered him in the right direction and he is a bright young star in the world of stock finance and trading. He is also dating Gekkos daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) who runs an anti-establishment blog. She is also very much estranged from her father.
The movies plot basically concerns these relationships as well as the stock market crash of a few years back and how various Wall Street moguls were affected. There is a little too much talk about insider trading, etc which some people in the audience may not be able to handle; still the relationship plot is enough to provide the entertainment they need.
Douglas is excellent as Gekko. It is a role he was born to play. He has the look, the mannerisms and the personality to put it all together. Of course in light of his recent health problems it is disconcerting to hear him speaking about cancer and also about the value of time.
Matching Douglas in the outstanding acting department is Langella. His performance is so intense that you fear for his actual health. If he does not get awards for this role there is no justice in the entertainment world. He is perfection in the part.
Josh Brolin is also good in his role as a wheeler dealer on Wall Street who may or may not have been involved in Gekkos conviction. The ageless Eli Wallach is welcoming as another wily financier. Susan Sarandon makes an appearance as Jakes mother and adds nothing to the plot or to the overall enjoyment of the movie. She is totally superfluous.
Then there is LaBeouf. The rise to stardom of this young man is a mystery. He seems to have been in the right roles at the right time, but has never shown true talent in any of them. Okay, he was at his best in Disturbia but in that one he played a teen which is what he was. In this movie he is not believable as a Wall Street broker or as the love interest for Carey Mulligan. He is out of his depth among this cast and it shows.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a movie that entertains by way of the skilled acting on screen and the way director Oliver Stone has with presenting a complicated plot. It could have been better with some tightening and a little less stock market dialogue, but it still is well worth your time.
I scored Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps a wide awake 7 out of 10.
