Black Friday

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This article was published 24/09/2010 (5787 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’re no longer innocent. We’ve already fallen from the giddy heights of bull markets and housing bubbles, and the resulting bruises have made us realists in the face of money.

And once you look at the siren that once held you rapt in the cool light of day, she’s not the seductress she once was. She may try to woo you with her empty shine, and creaking flirtations, but it all seems a little sad — a little pathetic — and, as this second Wall Street proves, a little late.

Attempting to recapture the solid-gold glint of success that resulted from our first encounter with the über-character Gordon Gekko, Oliver Stone returns some 23 years later with another instalment in the life of the self-made man.

This time around, however, Gekko is not the king. Usurped from his throne by a new breed of Wall Street broker whose greed knows no limits, and morality recognizes no laws, Gekko’s opening scene places him outside the universe he desperately craves.

It may even be the best scene in the entire film: Gekko reclaims his personal items from the jail custodian on the day of his release. As the man in uniform lists off the inventory — including a gold ring and a gold money clip “with no money in it” and a gigantic, barbell-sized Motorola cellphone — the camera pans over to Michael Douglas’s aged face and, immediately, we feel vested in the drama.

Aided and abetted by the recent absence of Douglas on the frantic A-list, we can enter the alternative reality of Douglas as Gekko without effort. Both egos have been outside our field of vision for just the right amount of time, leaving us with a palpable hint of longing.

You can feel it in that first glance: the return of something familiar and oddly comforting. It’s the devil we know — and no one does a better devil than Douglas.

Proudly striding out of prison with little more than the clothes on his back and smouldering fire in his eye, Gekko takes a cab to somewhere and promptly disappears from the drama for a good 20 minutes.

In this time, we meet the next generation of power seekers led by the young lean tiger named Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf). Jake is a junior trader at a big firm that has enough capital to swing markets, and from his first boardroom scene, we can tell he’s no pushover.

Jake isn’t a follower. He’s got his very own moral compass, and it’s magnetized by his deep affection for his girlfriend, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Though it’s a plot twist that makes little sense — but is absolutely necessary for dramatic structure — Winnie is Gordon Gekko’s daughter.

Over the years, between Wall Street and Wall Street 2, we learn Gekko had two children — and the older brother, Rudy, died of drug abuse, resulting in the current estrangement between Gekko and his only surviving offspring, Winnie.

Gekko wants to reunite with Winnie, for what we believe are deeply personal reasons. Winnie wants to be with Jake, even though he’s a Wall Street trader, just like the father she loathes. Jake wants to befriend Gordon Gekko, because, like all young heroes, he needs a mentor and a father figure.

What’s we’re left with is a triangle, but one that never fully closes, because Stone is desperate to infuse his story with the continuing drama of the global economic crisis. And that’s where this timely movie goes desperately wrong.

After two years of on-and-off panic, endless punditry, special news broadcasts and presidential addresses, every human being on the planet is familiar with the terms “derivative,” “leveraged debt” and “bubble.”

Two decades ago, we were the ignorant masses whose money enabled fiduciary malfeasance at the hands of morally bankrupt people. Now, we’re still fulfilling the same function — and gluing the house of cards together with our blood, sweat and hard-earned tax-paid dollars — but we’re no longer ignorant.

We’re hyper-aware of what’s happened. We know we’re the last line of defence against the chaos of complete collapse. Stone seems to think there’s enough moral energy left for outrage — as though we could somehow wave a magic wand and redesign the way the world financial system works.

The Pollyanna approach feels a little patronizing at this point, and it means Stone’s movie has no driving force after the second act. The terrible thing has already happened: we’ve been cast out of the money Eden — just like Gekko — and, as a result, Gekko is still the most interesting character in the mix.

Once the most loathed, and simultaneously admired, movie characters in the annals of Hollywood, Gordon Gekko represents our desire for financial success and the internal moral boundaries we’d cross to get there. He’s hypnotic, but his motley moral innards aren’t really probed with any great success.

Stone gets lost in a facile explanation of the 2008 crash, stereotypical villains and a secondary plot about green energy that rips apart the original movie’s underlying message about money and the distribution of wealth.

The ending is so flat and stupid, it reduces the entire exercise into something entirely unremarkable.

The best parts of the movie come from Douglas, who sails through the movie like Odysseus on his way to Ithica — forever wary of the next siren, and the next Cyclops. He’s got his eyes fixed on a destination, and we feel his conviction and commitment. This is what makes a hero, and this is why he holds our attention for the duration.

Exactly what that means for the movie as a whole, however, is problematic, because it means Stone undermines his own message. Everything Gordon Gekko stands for is supposed to be bad, and yet, we want him to be on screen all the time. We even want him to succeed with his greed agenda.

The movie tries to make us question whether or not “greed is good” — but it answers its own query: Greed may not be good for the soul, but it’s clearly the very best thing about this movie.

 

— Postmedia News

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps

Starring: Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan, Shia LaBeouf, Frank Langella and Josh Brolin

Theatres: Globe, Grant Park, Kildonan Park, Polo Park, St. Vital

Rating: PG

Rating: Two and a half stars out of five