Friday, October 8, 2010

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS




Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Michael Douglas: Gordon Gekko, disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider
Carey Mulligan: his daughter Winnie, creator of the frozentruth.com website
Shia LaBeouf: her live-in boyfriend Jacob “Jake” Moore, a Wall Street trader
Josh Brolin: Bretton James, CEO ??? of Churchill Schwartz Securities
Frank Langella: Jake’s boss Louis Zabel, CEO of Keller Zabel Incorporated
Susan Sarandon: Jake’s real-estate agent mother Sylvia
Eli Wallach: Jules “Julie” Steinhardt, Bretton’s boss ???

REVIEW
Don’t go to see the movie expecting to get a better understanding of the 2008 worldwide financial meltdown or the predatory trading practices that contributed to this crisis since these topics are dealt with at breakneck speed, not in layman terms but that of an Economics major. And keeping track of all the people who keep popping up is next to impossible, especially given that their role is not that well defined to start with. The parallel story line of an estranged daughter trying to deal with her father is equally muddled and rambling.

Once more a film where one person (Oliver Stone) takes on more than 2 key positions (Director, Producer, Writer) has a major shortcoming: in this case the storyline needs rewriting. And it also needs some editing because it goes on far too long at 2 hours plus.

There are some good things to be said about it: the high production values and great acting by Michael Douglas. But apart from that it offers very little of consequence.

CLASSIFICATION
for brief strong language and thematic elements.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• The scroll at the top of the NBC television program showing the Dow Jones average remains unchanged at 10,917 even though in real life at one point in time it dropped below 7,000.
• Gordon and Jake are in the taxi for quite some time before we get to see the meter: it reads $2.90. Given that the drop for a New York cab is $2.50 and increases 40 cents every 1/5 of a mile it should be much higher than that.
• Gordon says he was locked up for 122,000 hours; in fact his incarceration was only 8 years for a total of 68,352 hours.

P.S.
I checked it out and Gordon’s story about Tulipmania actually happened as he described it.

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