In the two decades since the original Wall Street, Oliver Stone’s critical reputation has taken a well-deserved drubbing. The all-flash-no-substance critique, which has been retroactively applied even to his best films like his Vietnam War trilogy and JFK, has only gained traction with the release of gaudy spectacles like Alexander and pointless biopics like W. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is guilty of all the sins ascribed to Stone, plus one: there is no particular need for this film to exist.
Sure, the economic crash of 2008, like the Anything Goes decade of Reganonomics, is ripe for cinematic interpretation. But this tired retread of the original Wall Street shows as much creativity in dealing with the depression as the US government did. Want to show that the real-estate boom was a bubble waiting to burst? Oliver Stone will have a child blowing bubbles.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps isn’t Stone’s worst film; that honour will always be reserved for U-Turn. The film is partly saved by Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko who, after serving time for his crimes in the first movie, is now delivering anti-motivational lectures to college students about the evils of the financial industry. In a bid to get close to his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan), Gekko takes a young trader (Shia LaBeouf) under his wing. Douglas’ performance is electric. His motivations are hard to pin-point as he becomes increasingly engrossed in the high-stakes world of finance.
Amid more obvious metaphors of falling dominos, Stone wastes the acting talent, which also includes Frank Langella and Josh Brolin, at his disposal. Aimlessness and lethargy plagues the film. The director is more concerned with finger-pointing and blame-shifting in trying to uncover the true villains of the financial crisis than he is with narrative and character. The chief failure of the original Wall Street was its reception by the public: instead of being seen as a smooth, soulless anti-hero, Gordon Gekko was considered a role model by a legion of economics majors at Ivy League universities. Over-cautious in not repeating the same mistake, Stone becomes a preacher with a moral agenda.
Given Douglas’ health problems, a feel-good Oscar nomination is on the cards. It would be well deserved given the paucity of material he has to work with. Oliver Stone, on the other hand, should never be allowed near a big budget, star actors and moralistic scripts ever again. Only that may teach him the virtues of subtlety. Then again, a man who looks up to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez is unlikely to ever mellow. Stone has many weaknesses; it is his lack of modesty that shines through in every failed film.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 7th, 2010.
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