Wall Street

Wall Street" is a movie that seems to spark much debate. Basically, it is the working out of a moral struggle within young Wall Street trader Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) between the values with which he was raised of hard work and success through actual creation, versus those of his mentor Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) who succeeds through corporate raiding and "creative destruction". From Bud's viewpoint his dad's (Martin Sheen's) road map for success and happiness seems old-fashioned to the point of being prehistoric compared to Gekko's, until Gekko sets his sights and his wrecking ball on his father's company, and Bud is forced to choose.

Many people associate this film with a liberal versus conservative viewpoint on business, a wild-west economy versus a planned economy and relegate this film to 1980's era nostalgia, like the now humorously giant cell phone Gekko is talking on as he walks along the beach. It is said that neither extreme works and that we've gradually settled towards something in the middle. However, the Gekkos of this world are smarter than that, and over the past 20 plus years they have set up an economic system that serves them well. What we now have is a situation where the haves and have-mores have a planned - almost Soviet - system in which the rules stratify them at the top. I cite the changes in bankruptcy law as exhibit A. The members of the labor force that serve them, however, are in the wild-west economy that was once advocated for everyone. Some will rise to the stratified top in this situation, but the vast majority will remain at the bottom shooting it out with each other - for scarce good jobs, good health care, education, etc. Thus, to me, Wall Street is just an opening chapter in the saga of how economic forces and attitudes toward them have changed, not the portrait of a 25 year-old fad that has come and gone.

First of all, it's amazing now to see how young, baby-faced and gauche Charlie Sheen looks from this distance in time, particularly when he's trying to hit on Daryl Hannah.

In today's dumbed down movie world, Gordon Gekko could have been scripted and played exactly the same except for one thing: you'd never see the scene when he suddenly stops to admire the ocean at dawn. Fortunately Michael Douglas clearly added his own dimensions to the character whom, if left to Stone, would have been a cardboard money-grabber. As far as Stone is concerned Gekko wants money for its own sake, but Michael Douglas manages to evince a man who revels in the power and influence that money gets him. Stone's dialogue actually undercuts this perception on occasion, as when Bud Fox yells at Gekko, "How many yachts can you sail!?", and when Gekko, enticing Fox by outlining how rich he could be, says, "Rich enough to have your own jet" - as if owning a jet wasn't the minimum accoutrement you'd expect from the least successful company director or minor pop star. Other infelicities in the script include the moment when Stone wanted to signal that Bud Fox has reached the peak of success and found it empty: following the montage of the condo purchase and decoration, the perfect meal for two, culminating in making love to Daryl Hannah, Stone has Fox standing on his balcony, and apropos of nothing at all, he just says, "Who am I?" It has to be said that Sheen wasn't really up to the task of delivering this atrocious line.

I've rarely seen a film in which the female lead was so comprehensively abandoned by the director. Stone clearly wanted to focus all his attention on Sheen and crucially on Douglas, leaving Hannah floundering and unable to clearly express just how much into Bud Fox her character is at any one time. At the final break-up you almost hear Stone's sigh of relief at being able to get rid of the irrelevant female (probably forced on him by the studio) and concentrate on the man's world of stockbroking.

I seem to be finding a lot of flaws in what is basically a most compelling and watchable film. Despite the complex jargon-riddled technicalities of the subject matter, the movie's plot grabs hold of the viewer from the first scene and never lets go. Of course Douglas dominates most of the movie, until Fox sr. (Sheen sr.) throws the spanner in the works of his son's airline deal. Thank heavens Charlie Sheen took the unbelievably courageous decision to have his own father (instead of Jack Lemmon) play his character's father because the two of them perform an absolute barnstormer of a scene in which every word, inflexion and facial expression is repleat with absolute truth; and it's all the more poignant considering Charlie Sheen's own personal difficulties which faced him in later years, and the well-publicised ups and downs of his relationship with Martin as a result. Had those troubled times preceded this movie, it's hard to imagine the performances could have been any different - that's how good they are.

Fantastic character support comes from Hal Holbrook, the always reliable Saul Rubinek and John C. McGinley (who does not seem to have changed at all in the intervening years!), a young James Spader and the magisterial Terence Stamp who understands the unutterable menace with which it is possible to lace the single word "Mate".

Epochal film from the 80's, which has almost unbelievably, in today's post Merrill Lynch / Northern Rock (depending on which side of the pond you're on) banking debacles become topical again, so much so that a same director / same star follow-up is reportedly in the making.

It will have to go some though to beat the shock and awe value of its prototype, with Douglas' larger than life personification of corporate greed, Gordon Gekko, dominating proceedings. Charlie Sheen is the young trader on the make, aiming to aspire, or so he thinks, to Gekko's status and success, trying so hard to please his idol that he not only ends up aping his appearance (slicked back hair, big suspender braces) but even betraying his idealistic union-man father by relaying insider knowledge on the latter's ailing airline employer to Gekko who then moves in to welsh on his workforce-friendly words to asset strip the company for massive personal gain. Sheen's Bud Fox character eventually has an epiphany, augured by the coincidence of real-life and cinema dad Martin copping a heart attack and turns on and indeed turns in his guru to the authorities to bring ultimate closure to the piece.

The film has its faults; I didn't quite buy into Douglas surrogate-father figure appeal to Sheen Jr., the coincidental heart attack of Sheen/Fox Sr is a bit too pat and some of the supporting characters come on like mere ciphers, including Terence Stamp as the UK magnate-cum-nemesis of Gekko and Daryl Hannah as a Gekko cast-off girlfriend/groupie who becomes young Sheen's trophy girl-friend. This leads to a larger criticism on the paucity of female characters in the film at all, but if you can accept that this is a man's man's man's world, to paraphrase James Brown, then this morality tale of its time still packs a punch, especially with the collapse of Communism and the surrender of the likes of Russia, China et. al to the addictive drug of big-bucks capitalism.

Stone's camera is constantly on the move, capturing the frenetic-ism of dealers on the trading floor as market frenzy takes hold, with the dialogue razor-sharp throughout, so many of the phrases of course having become clichés for that era, almost entering common parlance the language, such as greed is good, lunch is for wimps and more.

In the end, young Sheen would have done well to be careful what he wished for, but if he's the Little Red Riding Hood to Douglas' Big Bad Wolf, this particular out-sized fairy tale reaches its conclusion fittingly and satisfyingly, opening up a seamy, selfish world that you know is out there still, now more than ever.

Deceptively deep and complex picture from co-writer/director Oliver Stone paints a vivid portrait of 1980s over-excesses as the age of "Me, Me, Me" (otherwise known as the 1980s) is explored through the eyes of a young, eager and impatient stockbroker (Charlie Sheen) who moonlights as a liaison to a heartless, ruthless and crazily greedy mega-millionaire (Michael Douglas in a smashing Oscar-winning turn) who seemingly has his hands on most every aspect of big business. Naturally dilemmas occur in every direction for Sheen as the lifestyle he wants comes at a very heavy price (both literally and figuratively). A strained relationship with his father (real-life dad Martin Sheen) and a whirlwind fling with the superficial Daryl Hannah just leads to more and more cinematic fireworks. "Wall Street" is really the only film I can think of to deal seriously with its subject matter. Everyone of the age remembers the yuppie phase this nation had in the mid-1980s. Young urban professionals did their best to make as much as they could as fast as possible (sometimes through crooked and illegal means). The idea of retiring at 40 seemed like a good notion, but those same people with those thoughts are still working today (they never made their millions or they made their money and ended up going into a lifetime of debt because they spent their earnings quicker than they could make it). Ultimately the 1980s was good while it lasted, but good like that never lasts forever and that becomes painfully clear as Sheen's character becomes a warning to all those who think they can out-think and manipulate a strained economic system. Douglas is a complete revelation. I mean there is no doubt that he is an excellent performer, but his portrayal of a money- and power-mad player in New York is truly one of those instances of classic career work being achieved. Super-slick, wickedly intelligent and definitely a thinking person's movie, "Wall Street" continues to strike a chord when looking back at a very unique time of American economic history. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

With his diabolical charm, slicked-back hair, city-college chip on his shoulder, and era-defining "greed-is-good" mantra, Gordon Gekko may by one of the all-time great film roles. Michael Douglas's performance as Gekko won a deserved Oscar in 1988 and makes "Wall Street" required viewing.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to money. Some economists argue money is an expanding resource, and prosperity a rising tide that lifts all boats. For Gekko, the truth is simpler and more brutal: The rich get richer off the backs of everyone else. "Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred," he tells his young protégé Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen).

No question writer-director Oliver Stone feels the same way, as he presents this tale of wealth acquisition at its very apex, lower Manhattan circa 1985. In practically every frame showcasing the opulent world Gekko travels can be glimpsed beggars, fishermen, window washers, people who never will have access to the white-collar lifestyles their lowly status perversely enables for others.

For some, this zero-sum take of America clouds their enjoyment of "Wall Street" the movie. It shouldn't. You don't have to buy Shakespeare's version of history in "Richard III" to enjoy the morally bankrupt character at its center, and you don't need to adopt Stone's philosophy to enjoy Gekko.

In fact Stone's attitude about the Street, presented here as a kind of Hogarth caricature, helps make the film so entertaining. He captures the scenes of floor trading and calls and puts in journalistic detail, but leaves room for the human equation. And he has fun, a lot of fun, especially with Gekko, a character who makes you laugh with his pithy comments even as he sets about using poor Fox as a human ashtray.

On an upcoming charity event for the Bronx Zoo: "That's the thing about WASPs. They hate people, but they love animals." On a rival: "If he was in the funeral business, no one would ever die!" To Fox: "You had what it took to get into my office, sport, the question is do you have what it takes to stay."

Fox wants to stay, and allows no SEC regulation to block his wayward path. Stone's father was a stockbroker, and so the director takes special care to show us that all Wall Streeters aren't bad. There's Hal Holbrook, almost too saintly and somewhat detached from day-to-day business of his brokerage house to the point he seems a slumming B-school don. John C. McGinley delivers a standout performance as a vulgar, greedy friend of Fox's who we nevertheless find ourselves sympathetic to, especially as Fox ditches him for Gekko.

But of course it's really Gekko's world, as we watch him at his desk, punching telephone-line buttons and encouraging subordinates to "rip their throats out," checking his blood pressure with one hand while smoking a cigarette in the other. His centerpiece moment, his speech to the stockholders at Teldar Paper, is a compelling soliloquy not because it showcases his brutality but because it allows him a chance to explain his philosophy in a way that sounds logical, even honorable, until you think through the implications. That's Stone's screen writing at its best.

Sheen is also masterful in his role, playing the naive waif who wants to swim with the sharks and thus giving Douglas daylight to run. Too bad there's a tacked-on romance that never really works, in part because the character of Darien Taylor is not well developed, in part because Darryl Hannah hadn't yet met Quentin Tarantino. The ending is a bit too neat, and loses the subtlety that makes the rest of the film so good.

But the heck with subtlety when you have Gordon Gekko. Douglas is the reason for watching "Wall Street," and a terrific one. Just watch the way he looks at Bud, eyebrows raised to hold a pregnant silence, or enjoys the discomfort of his arbitrager-rival Sir Larry (a solid Terence Stamp). Stone knew what he had here, and makes the most of it. As a twisted morality tale, "Wall Street" is a thrilling, scenic ride down a dark and dangerous road.