Wall Street: Money

Never Sleeps isn't the

sharp, critical film that
its makers want you to
think of it as. The
sequel to the supremely
influential, endlessly
quotable original from
the 80's is a dull
whimper about what
triggered the present
financial meltdown and
though it's cut from the
same cloth as the
original, it possess all of
the bark yet, sadly,
none of the bite.

Gordon Gekko is a
name that defined an
era. Played by Michael
Douglas twenty three
years ago, he
reverberated in the
minds of viewers as a
ruthless, amoral
investor without a soul.
Years later, the sequel
finds him released after
serving his prison
sentence. Cut to seven
years after his release,
and its 2008, the dawn
of the financial crisis.
Gekko is now known as
a speaker publicly
vilifying the notion of
greed in corporate
America while
simultaneously, and
some would reckon
quite ironically,
publicizing his book
inspiringly titled "Is
Greed Good". A loner
who travels in subways,
he is estranged from his
daughter Winnie (Carey
Mulligan,
androgynously
unglamorous) who is
engaged to a young
trader named Jake
Moore (Shia LaBeouf).
Jake bumps into Gekko
at one of his speeches
(the films finest scene)
and the two form a
mentor-protégé
relationship that irks
Winnie but allows Jake
to benefit by plotting
revenge from Bretton
James (Josh Brolin, the
films principle villain),
suspected of being
responsible for the
suicide of Louis Zabel,
a close friend and
confidant of Jake.
If the film sounds like a
mess of relationships,
then it is. As muddled
as Stone's own political
activism it has no
clarity on what its
trying to say. From
trying to rationalize the
reasons behind the
market crash to the
impulsive nature of
human behaviour, it
doesn't get either right.
Not helping are the
actors that Stone
assembles. It's a
mystery to me why Shia
LaBeouf is constantly
being thrust down
viewer throats in film
after film by studios
convinced he is the next
best thing. He is not,
and despite being
dressed up in expensive
designer garb, cannot
pass off as being
anything more
convincing than a
working intern. His
relationship with Gekko
has none of the enticing
quality that Charlie
Sheen's Bud Fox did
and a cameo appearance
by Sheen only
underscores this
disparity. Douglas
himself has none of the
limelight. He has some
powerful lines, but feels
largely sidelined by the
revenge/relationship/mu
rder subplots and
behaves
uncharacteristically,
especially in the very
last scene (these were
probably added as an
afterthought). After
showing some promise
of returning to his
incendiary, often
infuriating filmmaking
style and point of view
with his previous film
W, director Stone
seems to have gone
back to being
comfortable working
with drab studio
approved material.

Not only was the

original Wall Street a
tremendously
entertaining film, but
one that was blessed
with the critical
foresight of its maker.
The sequel partially
entertains but does not
have a new perspective.
It is neither critical nor
insightful and could
have, with the same
script and actors, been
the work of a lesser
director than Stone. The
films themes are also
impersonal - none of
the characters suffer
directly from the
financial crisis the way
they did in the original,
they suffer from their
own incompetent
decision making, a
sharp departure from
how the original
handled and fused stock
trading with personal
loss and gain.