Action: at the Movies with 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'
Article
After Moore sits in on an inspiring lecture from Gordon Gekko, the father of his fiance, Moore speaks with Gekko. Gekko takes him under his wing, becoming his mentor in the wake of Zabel’s death. Gekko agrees to help Moore with his revenge in return for helping him reconnect with his estranged daughter, Winnie.
After Moore impresses James with his revenge, he is offered a job by James and sees this as an opportunity to make a huge investment in the new energy research. In working with greedy men it’s not likely things will work out as you planned, and Moore’s case is no exception. He has to deal with being double crossed, balancing his career goals, and keeping his fiance happy.
LeBeouf is refreshingly genuine as the young, aggressive Moore. He plays the character with a refreshing genuineness one would not expect from a wall street-er. Douglas gives an acceptable follow-up to his previous Academy-Award winning performance, but the usually exceptional Mulligan, as Winnie, is a bit disappointing. She seems, however to be doing the best she can with the overly angsty, hypocritical character she was given. Douglas and LeBeouf work well together as mentor and protege, playing off a strained, deceptive relationship.
Despite the strong performances, the characters are never quite fleshed out and too often reside in the area of melodrama. We never get a good idea of why any of these characters are doing what they’re doing and find it hard to have any sympathy for them.
There is an utter lack of action for most of the film, and the first 45 minutes simply plod along. Stone made a menial attempt to infuse some action with an overlong motorcycle race that feels very out of place. He also made some strange decisions with the cinematography, adding oddly placed zooms and whirs, and strange number and computer-esque images running across the screen at times.
The film picks up after this initial 45 minutes, but then really fizzles out in the final third. One gets a sense that the film never knew for sure where it wanted to end up or what exactly it wanted to say, and flounders back and forth at the end, lasting at least twenty minutes longer than necessary. As relevant as the film may be for our time, some things are just best left untouched.
Sources
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and thematic elements
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon
