Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Review

• 28th Sep 2010

It is sometimes amazing how relevant the times over 20 years ago are still today. Oliver Stone, when not making large scale biopics, likes to live in the now and deal with themes and matters that hit audiences. His original Wall Street really hit home about a decade full of greed and now he brings that argument back round to reflect on how very little has changed, obviously helped by the world’s finances over the past couple of years.

Gordon Gekko is released from a prison looking and feeling out of date, behind the times and with no one to pick him up on the outside world. 7 years later we find his daughter living with a Wall Street trader played by Shia LeBeouf. Taking on the money centric, yet idealistic trader – he seeks out knowledge from Gekko in order to get back at a high powered trader (Josh Brolin) who is indirectly responsible for his mentor’s suicide. Gekko agrees, on the terms that he gets a chance to patch up the past with his daughter who is all that remains of his family.

Money Never Sleeps does call back to the editing style of the first with split screens – but toward the end there isn’t the frantic show down that the first film had. Instead, drama merely unfolds – but oh what drama there is! This sequel doesn’t pull too many punches, but usually takes the journey with feet firmly on the ground. Even the more despicable characters are still rooted in realism. People may say some despicable things, but usually they have a background that justifies their means.

The running time is way over the two hour mark and whilst the film is never boring, it does stumble slightly at the end when it never seems too comfortable with how to send us off (opting finally for something perhaps a little bit too sugary and sweet). The only thing worth removing though is perhaps one or two of Stone’s many music montages. There are quite a few skyscraper montages to modern music (no Stewart Copeland score this time round!) which seem utterly pointless and become a bit annoying.

However, it is a small price to pay for watching the likes of Josh Brolin and Frank Langella bring some very heavyweight acting kudos to the table. Of course, it is the Gordon Gekko show and Douglas knows his character very well even after almost 25 years. The young leads in the film are effective enough, but their roles are pretty contrived and not interesting enough to add any heavy dramatic weight. Basically, their path as a couple is pretty predictable and sadly without too much risk in the characters lives other than dealing with the stress of it all around them. Around the mid-point though, there is a nice cameo appearance from Charlie Sheen’s Bud Fox (Sheen starting to look his age here) who is perhaps a little too happy to see Gekko.

Overall this film is a winner though, if a bit of a flabby one. It does deliver on all the points that it should, it just needed a little trimming here and there to make it more effective. Any fan of the original will still enjoy the return of one of cinemas sleaziest villains of all time to our screens and he is still one of Douglas’ best characters. Anyone who follows the markets and has half a inkling into current events won’t have any trouble connecting to the plot.

Steven Hurst