God bless Oliver Stone. One of America’s most influential filmmakers, he sure knows how to pick his projects. With his treatises on war (Platoon), violence (Natural Born Killers) and politics both Cuban (Comandante) and American (W.), Stone manages to stay on the pulse of what’s relevant in our times. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, Stone revisits his Oscar-winning classic Wall Street to relevant effect here, although it’s hardly his best output of late (or, for that matter, the worst; remember Alexander from 2004?).
Michael Douglas reprises his role as Gordon Gekko, the conniving (and charming) insider trader who’s just been released from prison after eight years. The increasingly popular but ever-more bland Shia LeBeouf is Jacob Moore, a young and ambitious investor who happens to date Gordon’s daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Winnie doesn’t care about money and hates Gordon’s guts. She knows he can’t change and is still the same stealing, conniving bastard that went to jail all those years before, and who tore the family apart in the process. But of course, he’s back now and wants to get into the game again; he just doesn’t have any money. Meanwhile, the increasingly money- and revenge-hungry Jacob, whose mentor Lewis Zabel (a brilliant Frank Langella in a very brief role) kills himself after the market plummets following a nasty rumor, is hell-bent on making the man who started that rumor (Bretton James, played by Josh Brolin) pay for his dirty deeds, and (inevitably) ropes in the more experienced Gekko for the ride.
Sure, there are enough insider views on the (corrupted) stock market and bailout world here to keep the movie interesting, but Stone makes the mistake of having the young actors carry the film (through a predictably romantic subplot) with the impressive Douglas relegated to scheming in the background. Everything gets wrapped up nicely in the end (perhaps too nicely?) and Gordon gets to save his soul, but bear in mind that this is a moralistic Hollywood drama made to appeal to the masses, and lacks the punch of the first one. Sigh, if only Stone had gotten to the core of the crisis, and he might have come up with the quintessential dystopian film for the new age.