***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, Sean Young, and Terence Stamp
Directed by Oliver Stone & written by Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser
1987
125 min R
Sure, a lot of it is cliché now. But it takes a special kind of film to actually invent a cliché, and that’s the potency of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” To this day, people actually talk about the insatiably avaricious Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas in his Oscar-winning role) as if he were a real person. Slicked hair, thousand-dollar suits, suspenders, and an absolute absence of compassion, Gekko is not just a walking, talking embodiment of the explosion of greed that came over the stock market in the mid-1980s. He is all our fears of men whose business is money and nothing but money. I guarantee you plenty of people who haven’t even seen “Wall Street” still think of him when they are asked to imagine day traders and power brokers.
As the central figure of “Wall Street,” Gekko is the purest, most undiluted product of capitalism, untainted by morality or anything else that stands in the way of the free market. In a Darwinian sense, his environment has honed him perfectly, discarding all the fat and excess body parts, and he is more perfectly suited for his surroundings than all the creatures too timid or unwilling to leave behind their unnecessary luggage. He is also surprisingly charming, in a smooth, reptilian sort of way, but he is not the dynamic character of “Wall Street.” That role belongs to a low-level stock broker named Bud Fox, who is played by Charlie Sheen as a twentysomething, starry-eyed adolescent just waiting to be taken advantage of. Bud is enamored with consumption and idolizes Gekko, but he has nothing worth selling to Gekko and there’s nothing special about him. Gekko sees right through him, but he also sees that Bud is a little bit of a blank: he has a personality but has yet to develop any true character, and this makes him as deliciously corruptible as any company Gekko is waiting to consume.
The arc is familiar but it’s used again and again because it’s such a good one. Like Bud Fox, we see someone we think we want to be—in this case Gordon Gekko—and as we enter his world we find out what a sham he is. Bud gets all the stuff—the apartment, the clothes, the wine—and he even gets the girl. She’s an art dealer (Daryl Hannah) from Gekko’s circle, as addicted to high, comfortable living as any junkie is addicted to his poison. Stone takes his two protagonists in and out of the offices where sweaty men with their ties undone and their sleeves rolled up determine the fate of entire companies, with hundreds of thousands of employees. Bud’s initiation also includes some skirting of the law, as he and Gekko dabble in insider trading and industrial espionage. The movie is surprisingly aggressive and athletic, considering how boring it could have been and how much of it is comprised of figures, ledgers, and phone calls.
Everything looks authentic, from the cavernous expanse of Gekko’s office to the drab, cubicle fluorescence where we first find Bud, and Stone was even allowed to film on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during trading hours. The movie has time for clever details, like when Bud’s art dealer girlfriend makes fun of his crappy little apartment’s exposed brick wall, and then she decorates their $950,000 high rise condo with faux exposed brick and fashionably decaying furniture. “Wall Street” has aged surprisingly well, which is no small feat for a movie from the cheese-laden 1980s. All the outdated technology—giant cell phones, monochrome computer screens, and stock tickers that are divided into eighths instead of tenths—reminds us what a Sisyphusian chore it is to keep up with what passes for wealth. So much of what “Wall Street’s” characters desire is kind of a joke now, as so much of what we long for will one day seem ridiculous. Bud Fox’s job hardly exists anymore; most savvy investors buy their stocks or mutual funds directly off the internet without having to pay someone like him to make purchases for them.
Page two of “Wall Street.” Back to home.