Wall Street 2 Money Never Sleeps Movie Review

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Review

Wall Street MoneyNever Sleeps

Movie Review

© 2010 by Sportscar Projects




Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Sept. 24, 2010

What does the Cambrian Explosion, SaturnDevouring his Son, Tulip bulbs and laser fusionenergy have in common? Well, they are all reallyboring things that are explained in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps but the audiences does everytime we get another tiresome explanation aboutwhy speculation and leverage are the twin sisters

of economic doom.

One Word Movie Review: LAME

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (WS:MNS) opens withthe face of government regulation inthe form of a prison guard handingGordon Gekko his personal propertyafter 8 years behind bars. MichaelDouglas reprises his Oscar-winningrole (no worries he’ll repeat thatsuccess with this sequel) as the motherof all greedy bastards. Gekko has noone to pick him up from prison, nofamily or friends so he slinks away in a taxi to write a

book. Meanwhile, his daughter Winnie (Win) is involvedwith a young Wall Street trader named Jacob Moore.Together, they are the perfect couple for this morality tale:Win Moore – get it?




Don’t worry; there are more heavy-handed characternames like the new inside trader Bretton James (BrettonWoods was the 1946 conference to regulate currencies and

create the International Monetary Fund), Lewis Zabel(tower of Babel) and Jules Steinhardt (Jewels Stoneheart)and in a cameo, our wily friend from Wall Street, Bud(wiley) Fox. All this and a bushel of three-letter acronymstossed around in lecture after lecture about how WallStreet has embraced greed as good God almighty inWS:MNS.

Between lectures on how insane the financial world hasbecome, shots of soap bubbles floating into the air (morethan once) and endless vistas of New York skyscrapersreflecting our skewed values, we have an intimate lovestory between Win and Moore, played by Carey Mulliganand Shia LaBeouf. Let’s say right now, Carey can cry, crycry! She cries through the whole movie. Shia gets to tearup a few times and even Michael Douglas gets choked upwhen he’s trying to reconcile with his daughter.

The original Wall Street was an inspiration to a generationto get a job in the financial epicenter of the world, much todirector Oliver Stone’s dismay. His sequel is meant to bea morality play on how insane the financial system hasbecome. It is ruining the country and the “mother of all

evils: speculation” will lead to a total meltdown like theTulip mania of 1637 when houses were worth less thanone flower bulb.

There are some great speeches and performances inWS:MNS but it all plays hollow and repetitive. There is




nothing new here and all the characters are guilty of something, just not a crime that’s easy to prove. The onlyexcitement in the movie is tracking the parallels between

real events and the staged movie scenes where the namesare changed. Oh, and there are way too many shots of CNBC “TV bubbleheads” adding little value anddestroying the artifice of fact vs. fiction within the worldof these characters.

Near the end, WS:MNS uses the Einstein quote: “insanityis doing the same thing over and over and expecting

different results” to sum up the “banking on steroids” system we’ve bailed out in order to continue the samedamn thing over and over again until we destroy all thebubbles floating happily up into the blue sky. This, of course, is the whole concept behind a Hollywood sequel.

The Story

The story tracks Gekko being released from prison toMoore and Win and their happy life together. Moore is asuccessful trader with a wise mentor who awards himwith a $1.45 million bonus. Moore runs to the jewelrystore to buy an engagement ring from the “moneyroom”, reserved for high-value customers. He takes the

rest of his bonus and loses it on the crash of hisinvestment bank as it dives on speculation of beinginsolvent.




This results in the Bear Sterns debacle and the death of his mentor, played with great intensity by Frank Langella. He starts off confused, “How are we making

money off losses?” and bemoans his need to listen to “abunch of machines telling us what to do”. His world hasaged into outrage as he’s squeezed out of business by anold rival – the “bad guy” of the movie, the Bretton Jamesbillionaire played by Josh Brolin.

Gekko comes back into the spotlight with his book andgets to sound off about the “good old days” when greed

was good. Now it’s “greed is legal”. Moore getsinvolved in a deal which goes bad. He’s attracted toGekko in a nervous son-in-law way, becomingmanipulated by the father’s need to connect with hisdaughter again.

Moore’s career suffers during the financial marketmeltdown and so does his relationship with Win. This is

the strongest point of the movie as Win expresses asimple desire to “make each other feel safe, otherwisewhat’s the point?” In essence, this is the public’s plea toour financial system and our government.

There is a lot of jockeying by Moore to reconcile fatherand daughter while trying to broker a new $100 millionfinancing deal for a “fusion sea water” company. Themost elaborate scheme is to buy a dinner plate for thebroke Gekko for a measly $10,000 so he can“accidentally” bump into Win – cue tears. We also meetBud Fox again, looking very content with a babe on eacharm (Charlie Sheen probably walked right off the Two




and a Half Men set). Apparently, Bud was wise enoughto cash out and now spends his time in a life of leisure,as if this might be the role model we should follow

instead of Gekko’s commitment to “the game”. Gekkosums up his new life philosophy as “You die your way,I’ll die mine”.

From here, the final ending is plain ridiculous, but bynow you’ve really are past caring about anyone in themovie so you wait for another shot of soap bubbles andthe end credits. Maybe money never sleeps but the

audience can snooze for great parts of this movie withoutlosing much plot or risk “moral hazard” beyond beingripped off for buying a theater ticket.

The Genre

The headline-inspired social commentary drama genreworks if the subject is still fresh, new insights arerevealed or happy coincidence reinforces the socialmessage of the movie.

This happened to Michael Douglas in The China

Syndrome, released in 1979 just before the Three MileIsland nuclear accident. Wall Street followed a few

months after the 1987 Crash. If this sequel precedes aTulip-mania type market crash, then Douglas will get thetriple crown of social message synchronicity.

However, one senses the public is so numb and tuned outby the economic debacle we are in that they may not be




drawn to this material, especially the way it is presented inWS:MNS.

The Overall Quality

WS:MNS starts with a solid script detailing the marketaction and morality behind the events of 2008, but fails totell an engaging story. Frankly, Oliver Stone fell in lovewith the factoids at the expense of the characters. Hecertainly has no excuse for the soap bubble shots in thismovie. The best performances are by Langella as thedoomed Zabel and Eli Wallach in a small but critical partas the elder sage of a big investment bank who gives the“end of the world” speech with “birdie” effects.

Stone directs with a polished veneer which is heavy onthe close-ups of excess symbolism (as in the ear candy

on all the women in the gala Charity Ball) and his loveof skyscraper window motifs = computer screen windowmotifs.

The music is especially lame, including several DavidByrne/Brian Eno songs that are irritatingly inappropriatefor the subject matter on the screen. You yearn for theRolling Stones classic Sympathy for the Devil which

drives the movie trailer for this movie but doesn’t appearin the film.

The ending is the classic Hollywood compromise to adumbed-down audience profile. They really must think we’re all saps in seats to buy the pious about-face events




at the close. Why bother with the first 100 minutes of the movie?

The answer is obvious: we need to be hammered with

the outrageous facts of the housing meltdown andbailout. Yes, the government implemented socialism inour capitalistic culture! Yes, crimes are defined only bywhat you can prove! Yes, the bad guy must be aFrancisco Goya fan to have the Saturn Devouring His

Son painting over his fireplace.

Movie/Market Analysis

The movie mood for audiences leaving the theater is Negative. WS:MNS has a fine pedigree from the firstmovie in 1987 but squanders that good will with a boringstory and a preachy lecture on moral hazard around every

corner. Anticipation was high for another insightful look into the world of high finance but we get too much abouttulips and the biggest bubble of all, the Cambrianexplosion of 530 million years ago which created humansalong with a billion other species and curiosities. Is it justme or is this a gigantic leap from an evolutionary anomalyto a financial crisis of self-interest and greed? I guesswe’ll have to keep examining the fossil records to find out.

MarketBOB’s sentiment indicators, the GQS (Genre,Quality, Story) rate WS:MNS an emotional BEAR. Thereminders of excess piggishness by Wall Street, constantpredictions of bursting bubbles yet to come and the




morality of success measured by what can be proven isvery scary to the average viewer. There is considerableevidence that individual investors have abandoned the

stock market and this movie will do nothing to change thataversion to a system which is morally and (for now atleast) fiscally bankrupt.

Craig Forgrave

(MarketBOB)

For the latest reviews and

analysis of movies and their impact on marketpsychology, go to http://www.marketbob.com/ For allmy books and writing projects, drop by my writer sitehttp://www.cforgrave.com/ and my home base forterrific ideas at http://ideariffic.com/

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Wall Street 2 Money Never Sleeps Movie Review