{"id":9734,"date":"2010-10-02T21:08:48","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T05:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9734"},"modified":"2021-07-04T13:07:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T20:07:42","slug":"wall-street-money-never-sleeps-oliver-stone-2010-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9734","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Oliver Stone, 2010): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara, CA.<\/p>\n

\"\" Twenty-three years after the original,\u00a0Michael Douglas has\u00a0reprised his role as the corporate raider\u00a0Gordon Gekko, in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street:\u00a0 Money Never Sleeps<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Upon his release from prison Gekko authors a bestseller, accepts numerous\u00a0media interviews, joins a lecture circuit and attempts to reconcile with his embittered\u00a0daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan).\u00a0 Winnie, who is thoroughly disgusted\u00a0by her father’s white collar crimes and his\u00a0mantra that “greed is good,”\u00a0becomes engaged to Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) who just happens to be\u00a0a top trader at\u00a0a major investment bank on Wall Street.<\/p>\n

When Moore’s banking firm goes belly up, he soon discovers (with the help of Gekko) that Bretton James (Josh Brolin) was indirectly responsible for the death of his boss and\u00a0mentor Lou Zabel\u00a0(Frank Langella), as well as the collapse of their firm Keller Zabel Investments.<\/p>\n

As his stocks\u00a0rapidly plummet, Jake is bled financially by his mother (portrayed by Susan Sarandon) who makes one bad investment after another, and he suddenly\u00a0has no choice but to accept a position with Bretton James’ firm and sets about to destroy him.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Gekko is doing a little wheeling and dealing of his own, catching Jake unaware. (Read more: Bitcoin Superstar Fake<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Douglas delivers a solid performance, as does Langella and Sarandon, but Brolin gives a stand-out performance as the icy Bretton James.\u00a0 There is a nonsensical cameo by Charlie Sheen, but the performance of Eli Wallach as Jules Steinhardt (Bretton’s boss) more than makes up for that blunder.<\/p>\n

The casting of LaBeouf is highly\u00a0questionable, as he’s a 24 year old who looks like a 24 year old.\u00a0 It’s a bit hard to swallow that this kid is the lead trader for an investment firm on Wall Street, given that he is handed a bonus check for over a million dollars by his boss, but does not exude anything special in the way of a genius, nor are we shown anything extraordinary about him as he works side by side with others who’ve in the business far longer than him.<\/p>\n

The role of Winnie is also slightly absurd, as Mulligan portrays her character as pouty, bitchy,\u00a0tearful and condescending,\u00a0and\u00a0not\u00a0only\u00a0unlikeable but downright\u00a0annoying.<\/p>\n

Worth a DVD rental, but skip the cinema price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara, CA. Twenty-three years after the original,\u00a0Michael Douglas has\u00a0reprised his role as the corporate raider\u00a0Gordon Gekko, in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street:\u00a0 Money Never Sleeps. Upon his release from prison Gekko authors a bestseller, accepts numerous\u00a0media interviews, joins a lecture circuit and attempts to reconcile with his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47504,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions\/47504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}