Money Never Sleeps … but then, Neither Does Rust
As the above clip from Reason.tv highlights, anyone expecting director Oliver Stone to pass up the chance to make millions while smacking capitalism around in a Wall Street sequel is an eternal optimist — or has never rented a single Stone film.
The big surprise lurking in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is that the film captures Stone at his collar-grabbing best — for a while.
It’s been ages since Stone made a film of consequence, alternating between weak propaganda fare (South of the Border) to sophomoric political profiles (W.). And the sappy World Trade Center, Stone’s dignified tribute to emergency workers in the 9/11 fallout (the root cause of which was never depicted on screen), garnered more praise than it deserved.
But in Money Never Sleeps, his delayed sequel to his 1987 smash, he makes it easy to forget about his recent missteps. It’s vintage Stone, chock full of meaty performances, slick dialogue, and story arcs one can’t help but follow.
The hard-left director doesn’t bludgeon the audience with polemics — he leaves that to the interviews promoting his
product.
The film is partly a reboot of his own ‘80s feature. This time, Shia LaBeouf plays the handsome, headstrong trader named Jake, standing in for Charlie Sheen. He works under a kindly mentor (Frank Langella) but has his sights on riding an alternate energy company to fame and fortune.
Ah, movie magic.
Jake is simultaneously watching the company go through a critical research step and trying to reconnect his girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) with her estranged father. And her pappy is none other than Gordon “Greed … is good” Gekko (Michael Douglas reprising his Oscar winning role) himself. But ol’ Gordon isn’t the man he used to be. Prison showed him the error of his ways, and now he simply wants to invest in a nurturing relationship with his daughter.
Jake’s also busy with a Gekko-style kingpin (Josh Brolin) who could make Jake rich if he can hold his nose long enough and bury his better instincts.
On paper, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps feels like Stone’s attempt at recapturing a culturally relevant movie mantle. The 2008 financial collapse opened the doors for his new Street, allowing him to resuscitate a golden oldie. But if he’s going through the motions, his A-list crew didn’t get the memo.
LaBeouf gets plenty of heat from movie fans for being too young and too lucky with roles in the last Indiana Jones feature and the Transformers films. Here, he channels the youthful arrogance Sheen once displayed but adds a tenderness the Two and a Half Man actor couldn’t muster. LaBeouf goes toe to toe with Brolin at one point, a standoff the young actor seemed destined to lose. He holds his ground — a career affirming moment, perhaps.
Mulligan’s role isn’t rich enough to matter, but she’s still a compelling screen presence. She’s pure emotion, her pixie haircut framing a face tailor-made for bringing light to shadowy roles.
And Brolin glistens with evil here, a fine foil for young Jake and proof that the W. star remains one of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters.
Money Never Sleeps coughs up some cloying dialogue in the opening sequences, almost as if Stone is parodying his past work. And much of the conversations involve insider trading mumbo-jumbo that will leave audiences a tad woozy. But it soon settles into a respectable groove, as does Jake‘s story. Suddenly, it’s retro Stone, and we can table preconceptions we had about tackling a very belated sequel.
It’s fascinating to watch a humbled Gekko desperate to reconnect with his daughter, his vaunted power all but unplugged. He still lives large, but he can’t even get a collegial nod from Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter during a restaurant sequence. Douglas keenly reinvents Gekko, in one speech deconstructing the system he gamed in the first film to thunderous, and rather silly, applause. It’s one of a handful of times the film screeches to a halt to make a political statement, though the moment doesn’t derail the narrative.
That comes later.
The film gathers an emotional momentum that’s dizzying to behold and chock full of Stone’s signature visual excess. The director can’t corral it into a satisfying finale. The filmmaker’s ideology jumps to the fore in the waning minutes, reminding us of the evil nature of greed and deifying a liberal blogger as the David who might just slay Goliath. The economic lessons are in bold type face, though conspiracy theorists might be disappointed that Stone hasn’t concocted a bogeyman out of whole cloth here.
But Stone’s politics don’t crush the film — the farcical story machinations do the honors. Watching the third act makes the very idea of a Wall Street sequel suddenly unnecessary. Stone turns Gekko into something he should never be, a twist so deflating it’s shocking any veteran director wouldn’t stop it cold in its tracks.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps reminds us of greed’s siren call, but it’s equally prescient about fading directors who refuse to let their past works live on in our memories.
Newsflash for you: the first one sucked, too. Douglas is a joke, the Sheens play like satire of liberal stupidity and Nanny-State thinking, and the whole preachy movie was devoid of intelligent thought on the subject of Wall Street.
Epic fail.
Oliver Stone, momentarily breaking from his slanderfest against Israel, delivers his anti-capitalism celluloid screed with Michael Douglass resurrecting his “me too” contribution.
The country in a Tea Party mood ought to not use the traditional thumbs up or thumbs down in response to more leftist attacks on free market enterprise from Marxist hypocrites, who can easily move to a land more suited to their hatred of this system.
No, the thumb is not the appropriate digit. One finger is, however.
You don’t like the way we earn money in this country, you won’t like how we decide to spend it either, or more accurately, don’t spend it. Make your next film in Venezuela. And don’t forget to bring your own electricity source.
This is a post I wish I’d have written.
KUDOS! Make your f*cking films in socialist countries.
Hollywood is a garbage producer. I hope they are feeling pain, because they refuse to recognize the intelligence of their “supposed” audience.
Go sell shoes. America is sick to death of being shat upon.
Amen, brothers.
The first one was terrific. I’ve watched it dozens of times. The Sheens played their roles perfectly, and the Union guy’s tribute to the airline’s founder resonated then and does now, next to CEO’s enamored only with numbers. I hope this one is at least as good–at least he didn’t put Jane Fonda in the thing. That would have been a deal breaker.
Note to Oliver Stone:
Self Interest is NOT Greed.
Desire to improve one’s lot in life is NOT Greed.
Desire to support one’s family is NOT Greed.
I will even go so far as to point out that Selfishness is NOT Greed.
.
Yet you make movies that decry anyone who is not totally selfless and altruistic as Greedy.
.
The full biblical quote is “THE LOVE OF money is the rood of all evil.”
When oliver learns what Greed really is, the movie may actually make sense.
Actually, if the desire to make a buck is greed, then Stone is just as greedy as any of those he seems to enjoy portraying as demons. Otherwise he’d be letting people into his films for free.
I think the word you’re searching for is HYPOCRISY which to me is the perfect one-word definition of the left. I wish I could resurrect Ayn Rand long enough to have her punch Stone dead in the mouth. Now that would be justice.
“Shia LaBeouf plays the handsome, headstrong trader named Jake…”
Well, no. Shia LaBeouf cannot play a “handsome trader” for the simple reason that he is not handsome. Nice-looking enough, but not handsome, not even in a metrosexual way like Sheen.
It is interesting that in both “Wall Street” (which I found rather boring) and the sequel (which I will not bother to see) it is the villains, and only the villains, that are played by SEXY actors. Douglas in his prime and Brolin today are not only handsome, but handsome in a very masculine way.
If I were a shrink, I might wonder why the homely, decidedly unsexy Oliver Stone cast the movies that way. But since I’m not a shrink, I’ll concede that there probably is no deep meaning to be found there!
Well put. One of the definitely superior reviews this film –and director Stone–have received.
Note to whoever edits this site re comment on my comment: as I’ve never put up any comments on any films to date here or elsewhere. Don’t see that my complimentary comment can resemble anything “said before.” Or just maybe you don’t like bland positive comment??
Wall Street I and Wall Street II but project the contents of the black holes that do its producers, director and actors for “character.” Every time an Oliver Stone, a Michael Douglas, an Al Gore, a Michael Moore or a Benicio del Toro sets out to represent any ordinary or extraordinary Human, he invariably and involuntarily uses the ordinary Human as a blank canvas on to which he projects only himself. Michael Douglas’s Gorden Gekko? Michael Douglas’s inner liberal. Benicio del Toro’s gutless, cowardly bully and psychopathological mass-murderer “hero,” Ernesto Guevara?
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Well, I just saw the movie – and thought it was great!! Michael Douglas is still a scene stealer, Shia LeBeouf was not upstaged, emotional connection with Winnie Gekko believable, Susan Sarandon great in her cameo as a Long Island real estate investor, Frank Langella really got me emotionally right in the gut. And Eli Wallach – wow, what a character portrayal. Having followed all the twists and turns of the financial crisis and its fallout, there is allegory/analogy aplenty, here. Substitute Goldman Sachs for Churchill, Langella’s failed firm for Lehman or Bear Stearns. Gripping. It all came together nicely in the end with a cameo by Sylvia Miles reprising her real estate role. Lots of symbolism during the credits, so don’t leave too soon. Sequels often fall flat. For me, this one held its own and was JUST RIGHT. I loved it.
“Wall Street 2″ is lost in ticker tape and for the most part says nothing about the wall street meltdown or at least nothing we haven’t heard before. But I suppose the fan boys are all in awe. It proposes to say if you know wall street you will know my movie and where I am coming from and then proceeds to bury us with a whole lot of things and takes no serious point of view as to what he or his message is trying to convey. We are suppose to be in awe because Eli Wallach whistle with his lips and yet we have the fan boys saying what a great performance by Eli. LOL. The only true scene in the whole movie and the only thing worst seeing in the film is when Douglas character has a heart to heart talk with his daughter Mulligan. Other than this you can forget this one and not miss a thing.
I will never understand left wing entertainers who want to undermine an economic system which gives them total artistic freedom and has enabled them to become multimillionaires.