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Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), left, takes on a young Wall Street trader (Shia LaBeouf) in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” |
In Oliver Stone’s sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” financial uber-villain Gordon Gekko goes soft, the characters around him go soft in the head, and the director who hard-balled capitalism in his 1987 drama “Wall Street” has apparently misplaced his political Viagra.
“Money Never Sleeps” celebrates the return of Gekko, who won a best actor Oscar for Michael Douglas just for delivering his now-classic speech praising unregulated capitalism. (“Greed is good,” he says to room full of investors. “Greed works!”)
Stone attempts to capture lightning in bottle again by having Gekko – reprised by a much older Douglas, of course – address students with an update on the “Greed” speech.
He tells them that not only is greed still good, “apparently, now it’s legal!”
That’s it?
The original “Wall Street” cast Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox, a naive young stock trader who learns the worst from the best. He winds up in the hoosegow for illegal practices, but he still takes down his mentor the great Gekko by wearing a wire for the cops.
Gekko has served his time and gets sprung into the world like a financial Darth Vader, except his constant uttering of philosophical axioms (“It takes a fisherman to see another fisherman on the horizon!”) makes him sound like Yoda writing fortune cookie sayings for Wall Street restaurants.
As he did in “Wall Street,” Stone teases us with quick glimpses of Gekko, building up our anticipation to see how he’s weathered prison. (Read more…)