Wall Street - Poder e Cobiça

Michael Douglas deservedly won an Oscar for his portrayal of the ruthless, chain-smoking capitalist guru, Gordon Gekko, who leads Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox down the garden path to Wall Street's hidden abyss. Good supporting cast includes Sean Young, James Spader, reliable Hal Holbrook, and the wonderful Sylvia Miles. Tight direction, perceptive script with realistic techno-lingo, fabulous production design, dazzling cinematography of the Manhattan skyline, and hip 80's music rev up the technical quality of this Oliver Stone "message" film. If only the message had been more reassuring.

Gekko is a villain and an outlaw, but mostly he comes across to viewers as a worldly tough guy, a charming bully with a glamorous lifestyle. We see his high-class mega-office, his plush home and chic wife, his expensive paintings, his rapid-fire commands to his robotic lieutenants, his snazzy clothes and "in vogue" friends. Here and there we see his frustrations, but that only accentuates his toughness. We do not see him suffer, nor do we see the consequences of his selfish, Machiavellian behavior.

As a result, to viewers, especially to those youthful, bright, materialistic Americans with a smug, "can do" attitude, and disdain for ethics, Gekko is, unfortunately, someone to admire, a Wall Street role model.

First of all, it's amazing now to see how young, baby-faced and gauche Charlie Sheen looks from this distance in time, particularly when he's trying to hit on Daryl Hannah.

In today's dumbed down movie world, Gordon Gekko could have been scripted and played exactly the same except for one thing: you'd never see the scene when he suddenly stops to admire the ocean at dawn. Fortunately Michael Douglas clearly added his own dimensions to the character whom, if left to Stone, would have been a cardboard money-grabber. As far as Stone is concerned Gekko wants money for its own sake, but Michael Douglas manages to evince a man who revels in the power and influence that money gets him. Stone's dialogue actually undercuts this perception on occasion, as when Bud Fox yells at Gekko, "How many yachts can you sail!?", and when Gekko, enticing Fox by outlining how rich he could be, says, "Rich enough to have your own jet" - as if owning a jet wasn't the minimum accoutrement you'd expect from the least successful company director or minor pop star. Other infelicities in the script include the moment when Stone wanted to signal that Bud Fox has reached the peak of success and found it empty: following the montage of the condo purchase and decoration, the perfect meal for two, culminating in making love to Daryl Hannah, Stone has Fox standing on his balcony, and apropos of nothing at all, he just says, "Who am I?" It has to be said that Sheen wasn't really up to the task of delivering this atrocious line.

I've rarely seen a film in which the female lead was so comprehensively abandoned by the director. Stone clearly wanted to focus all his attention on Sheen and crucially on Douglas, leaving Hannah floundering and unable to clearly express just how much into Bud Fox her character is at any one time. At the final break-up you almost hear Stone's sigh of relief at being able to get rid of the irrelevant female (probably forced on him by the studio) and concentrate on the man's world of stockbroking.

I seem to be finding a lot of flaws in what is basically a most compelling and watchable film. Despite the complex jargon-riddled technicalities of the subject matter, the movie's plot grabs hold of the viewer from the first scene and never lets go. Of course Douglas dominates most of the movie, until Fox sr. (Sheen sr.) throws the spanner in the works of his son's airline deal. Thank heavens Charlie Sheen took the unbelievably courageous decision to have his own father (instead of Jack Lemmon) play his character's father because the two of them perform an absolute barnstormer of a scene in which every word, inflexion and facial expression is repleat with absolute truth; and it's all the more poignant considering Charlie Sheen's own personal difficulties which faced him in later years, and the well-publicised ups and downs of his relationship with Martin as a result. Had those troubled times preceded this movie, it's hard to imagine the performances could have been any different - that's how good they are.

Fantastic character support comes from Hal Holbrook, the always reliable Saul Rubinek and John C. McGinley (who does not seem to have changed at all in the intervening years!), a young James Spader and the magisterial Terence Stamp who understands the unutterable menace with which it is possible to lace the single word "Mate".

I have seen this movie dozens of times. It is a must see for any capitalist pig. Gordon Gekko remains one of the great movie villains, evil and ruthless to the core. You will love the music by Stewart Copland and Oliver Stone's direction and co-writing of a great screenplay. I went to this film expecting to hate it and loved it. This film will remind you of when Oliver Stone made REAL films. Its also a perfect time capsule for what 1980's America was like.

Wall Street" is a movie that seems to spark much debate. Basically, it is the working out of a moral struggle within young Wall Street trader Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) between the values with which he was raised of hard work and success through actual creation, versus those of his mentor Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) who succeeds through corporate raiding and "creative destruction". From Bud's viewpoint his dad's (Martin Sheen's) road map for success and happiness seems old-fashioned to the point of being prehistoric compared to Gekko's, until Gekko sets his sights and his wrecking ball on his father's company, and Bud is forced to choose.

Many people associate this film with a liberal versus conservative viewpoint on business, a wild-west economy versus a planned economy and relegate this film to 1980's era nostalgia, like the now humorously giant cell phone Gekko is talking on as he walks along the beach. It is said that neither extreme works and that we've gradually settled towards something in the middle. However, the Gekkos of this world are smarter than that, and over the past 20 plus years they have set up an economic system that serves them well. What we now have is a situation where the haves and have-mores have a planned - almost Soviet - system in which the rules stratify them at the top. I cite the changes in bankruptcy law as exhibit A. The members of the labor force that serve them, however, are in the wild-west economy that was once advocated for everyone. Some will rise to the stratified top in this situation, but the vast majority will remain at the bottom shooting it out with each other - for scarce good jobs, good health care, education, etc. Thus, to me, Wall Street is just an opening chapter in the saga of how economic forces and attitudes toward them have changed, not the portrait of a 25 year-old fad that has come and gone.

(The speech about the 1% is more important than the greed speech.) "It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a Zero Sum game - somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply, transferred - from one perception to another. Like magic." If you made a list of best New York movies, it would probably be blasphemous not to include work from Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese. However, for me, this might be the ultimate movie set in the financial capital of the world. I guess this is obvious, but it's hard to replicate the chemistry that a real father and son have. Martin and Charlie Sheen are near perfect together in every scene. Michael Douglas reaches god-mode as Gordon Gekko. Maybe my favorite performances of the 1980s? The most famous cellphone in the history of movies? If you want to have some fun, do a bit of research on the gigantic cellular device. The mash-up of everyone buying/selling stock on Wall-Street is pure ecstasy. Inject it straight into my veins! The screenplay is perfect. So smart. As an economics teacher, I'm probably biased, but I'm hooked on every word! A masterpiece!