BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

FILM REVIEW WALL STREET

Amit Khetan Roll No - 1111243

Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good, so says Gordon Gekko, one of the primary characters in Wall Street, summing up not only his credo but that of Wall Street in general. Directed by Oliver Stone, Wall Street is a tribute to his father, who was a stockbroker during the Great Depression1. The movie is set in 1985 and was released in 1987, against the backdrop of the heady mergers and acquisitions decade of 1980s. According to IMDB, Wall Street is classified in the genre of drama and crime2. The crime aspect relates to the white-collar crime of insider trading. The movie begins with a typical day in Wall Street - early morning rush in the subway and peoples minds occupied about the day ahead. The protagonist of the movie is Bud Fox (portrayed by Charlie Sheen), a salesman in a stock broking firm, who wants to be a player and on the other end of the phone. After desperate efforts he finally manages to ingratiate himself with his idol, Gordon Gekko (portrayed by Michael Douglas). The smart, persuasive and highly successful corporate raider Gekko takes Bud under his wing and introduces him to a world of easy money and fast women. Gekko persuades Fox to start getting confidential information by any means possible, even if its obtained by unethical or illegal methods. Desperate to get to the top, Fox compromises on his ethics. All of this clashes with the bluecollared values of Buds father and leads to an estrangement in their relationship. Things finally come to a head when Gekko goes after Blue Star Airlines, where Buds father has worked for his entire life, and secretly plans to liquidate the company to gain from the overfunded employees retirement fund.

The movie has been a commercial success and received critical acclaim as well. Michael Douglas received the Academy Award for his stellar performance.
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The central theme of the movie is human greed and how it pervades our society increasingly. This is shown by contrasting the values of Bud Foxs father, who is from a different generation and believes in hard work and making money by creating something over the long-term, and Gordon Gekko, for whom money-making is only a transfer of wealth from one individual to another by hook or by crook. What has been used very well in the film is the strong language, which was typical of Wall Street culture in the 1980s, as later corroborated by books of the same period like Liars Poker by Michael Lewis and Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. Phrases like raise the sperm count on the deal, fund managers are sheepand sheep get slaughtered, lunch is for wimps aptly reflect the lingo of the male-dominated Wall Street in the 1980s. The character of Gordon Gekko, is representative of corporate raiders of the period like Carl Icahn, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky, while the character of Bud Fox is typical of fresh business school graduates who want to make a mark in life and are drawn to the lure of Wall Street. The movie shows the evils of unfettered capitalism, where Gordon Gekko is only interested in maximising his profits and can go to any lengths to do so, without any regards to other stakeholders like employees, who would be without jobs in the event of liquidation. To some extent, the differences between Buds father and Gekko also brings to the fore the inherent conflict of interest that exists between owners and

employees, although in this case Gekko was less of an owner and more of an asset flipper. The government is represented by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the watchdog for the securities market whose role is to ensure that there is fair play and no insider trading happens. The movie ends with the implication that in the end evil is punished but that is not always the case. In most cases though, insider trading goes undetected. The movie is also a perfect demonstration of why white-collar crimes are so prevalent. The combination of ease of committing the crime, the low chance of getting caught and the high payoffs ensure that people who are on the margin can be easily persuaded to the other side of the moral divide. What is the relevance of the movie today? While the noisy and dirty trading floors dominated by men hurling abuses at each other have been replaced by swanky offices with a more gentile and diverse crowd, fundamentally nothing much has changed on Wall Street. Greed continues to be the primary driver of actions as demonstrated by the recently concluded financial crisis. Consequently, the movie continues to remain as relevant today as it was in the 1980s and serves as a reminder that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Insider trading continues to be as prevalent today as it was in the 1980s only now it has become more sophisticated and the sums involved much larger. Legendary investor Warren Buffett was bang on target when he said More money, it has been noted, has been stolen with the point of a pen than at the point of a gun. 3

However, the immoral and illegal aspects of Wall Street are romanticized to the extent that they could actually have unintended effects. The suave and persuasive Gordon Gekko is more likely to be seen as a role model than as an antihero. In reviewing the film's sequel twenty-three years later, Variety magazine noted that though the original film was "Intended as a cautionary tale on the pitfalls of unchecked ambition and greed, Stone's 1987 original instead had the effect of turning Douglas' hugely charismatic (and Oscar-winning) villain into a household name and boardroom icon -- an inspiration to the very power players and Wall Street wannabes for whom he set such a terrible example." Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would highly recommend it for the entertainment value as well as the how well it deals with one of the Seven Deadly Sins (greed). There is a character called Lou Manheim (played by Hal Holbrook), a veteran on Wall Street working in Bud Foxs broking firm who keeps encouraging Bud to take the high road and makes pithy quotes throughout the movie. Those scenes and quotes were the greatest takeaways for me. The scenes in the movie represent those chances that life offers us to reflect on whether we are doing the right thing and to correct ourselves before its too late. Two of the quotes particularly stand out: The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want to do Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss

Bibliography 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_(1987_film) 2 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/

3 - The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Lawrence A. Cunningham 4 - http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942753/