Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" is a true landmark that gave a proper face and a real voice to the yuppie generation, generation that was about to collapse at the end of the 1980's after many scandals, prisons and huge losses of money, as evidenced in the 1987 crisis - which took place months earlier of the movie's release. The documentary on the film, "Money Never Sleeps", misses a bit by not exploring the real individuals and what happened at the time, overlooking the context of when the movie was made (which is truly important so non-familiar viewers can have a better sense of why "Wall Street" is a powerful experience), instead the focus is on the behind the scenes aspects of the movie - nice things, though - the usual route in terms of bonus material for DVD's.
But we must acknowledge that Oliver Stone is here to tell us his motivations in making that movie (just so you know, in the TNT's The Directors special, he chose which movies he'd like to talk about while others, like "Wall Street", "Talk Radio", he refused to say words about it); heavily supported by cast members Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen and Charlie Sheen. Their interviews reveal a lot on the acting process, things that get easily overlooked by most viewers who think that being an actor is an easy task. And as we all know "Wall Street" was the movie that redefined Michael Douglas career to a whole new level, now respected as a complete dramatic actor in the role of powerful raider Gordon Gekko, role that earned him the Best Actor Oscar.
Don't miss it: the Sheen clan telling us about the scene where Bud Fox visits his father who suffered a heart-attack. Both agree that they weren't acting in that moment, it all came from memories of a similar experience Martin had on the set of "Apocalypse Now" when he almost died of a heart-attack and Charlie visited him in the hospital. They lived that.
Good documentary, loved all the stories but found it lacking in more perspectives, maybe some film critic/historian giving insightful perspectives on why "Wall Street" is a mandatory film; or maybe some personality involved in economy and business acknowledging what was true to life in the movie. This documentary can be found on the "Wall Street" DVD. 8/10
