Tripod: Review: Wall Street

<body bgcolor="#99CCCC" link="#0000FF" vlink="#663399" alink="#663399" text="#000000"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="TOP" align="CENTER" width="178">  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="170"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal-map.html"><img src="../../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="45" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/zones-map.html"><img src="../../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/zones.gif" alt="Zone Map" width="170" height="69" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td 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onchange="self.top.podRedirect(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value)"> <option value="">Related Pods</option> <option value="Freebies">Freebies</option> <option value="MacComputing">Mac Computing</option> <option value="PC%20User">PC User</option> <option value="Second-Hand">Second-Hand</option> <option value="Smallbiz">SmallBiz</option> <option value="Travel">Travel</option> </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> <br clear="ALL"> <p> <p> <p> <table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="top"> <center><img src="../../../../work/review/film/img/www_subdomain/wallstreet.jpg" width="165" height="195" alt="Wall Street movie poster"><br> <p> <a href="/">big picture</a> | <a href="/">clip</a> | <a href="/">smarts</a> </center> <p> </center> </td> <td valign="top"><p><br><p> <font size="+1"><b>Title:</b> Wall Street</font><br> <b>Year:</b> 1987<br> <b>Director:</b> Oliver Stone<br> <b>Writers:</b> Oliver Stone & Stanley Weiser<br> <b>Cast:</b> Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Martin Sheen<br> <b>Awards:</b> Academy Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role (Douglas)<br> <b>On Video?:</b> Yes<br> <b>Review by:</b> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/review/favorite/williams.html">Randy Williams</a><br><br> </td></tr></table> <blockquote><center><a name="bigpic"><img src="../../../../review/img/www_subdomain/bigpicture.gif" width="154" height="50" alt="the big picture"></a></center><br> <font size="+1"><b>R</b></font>emember the go-go '80s? The Great Communicator was in the White House, it was "morning again" in America, the government was blithely sending the national deficit into the stratosphere, and it was a by-God great time to be a capitalist. Actually, that bubble had already pretty much burst and the market had taken some ugly hits by the time Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" was released in 1987 -- at the last minute, the director had to add a title setting the story in 1985. Now, almost ten years later, "Wall Street" serves as a fascinating look back at the glory days of the corporate raiders. <p> The film tells the somewhat conventional story of a young, eager broker named Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) and his seduction by the forces of fast money and insider trading. The seducer is a charming but ruthless mega-investor named Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a slick operator prone to quoting Sun Tzu's "Art of War" ("Every battle is won before it is fought"), calling his underlings "pal" or "sport," and assuring his enemies that he's going to "rip their f***ing throats out." Gekko, who is described as having had an "ethical bypass at birth," treats everything and everyone as a commodity. Information is the commodity he values most, and he is willing to shower the sly young Fox with the lesser commodities of prestige, cash, and women in exchange for the right kind of insider tips. Bud buys in at first, revelling in the thrill of expensive suits and penthouse apartments -- even becoming involved with one of Gekko's cast-off mistresses (Daryl Hannah). <p> Just so we don't miss the point that Bud is on the road to hell, an older trader (Hal Holbrook) and Bud's father (Martin Sheen) form a sort of Greek chorus; they constantly regale the young hot-shot with pearls of wisdom such as "there are no shortcuts in this business," "a man shouldn't be judged by the size of his wallet," and "a person should create instead of living off the buying and selling of others." The younger Fox, of course, ignores this sage advice and gets in over his head with a Gekko-led takeover deal for the airline that employs the elder Fox. At the eleventh hour, Bud discovers that Gekko intends to wreck the company, liquidate its assets, and displace the workforce he had carefully won over with his riveting "greed is good" speech at a shareholder's meeting. Realizing that he, too, had been just another commodity to be used and discarded by Gekko, Bud joins forces with airline union reps and a rival investor to turn the tables on his slimy mentor. <p> The lead performances are outstanding. The father and son Sheen team are terrific, and Douglas richly deserved his Oscar win for his charismatic star turn as the oily land shark. Terence Stamp is also a stand-out as Gekko's nemesis, British trader Sir Larry Wildman -- but the fact that Stamp has since been burned into my consciousness as the middle-aged transsexual in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" made his first entrance here a bit jarring. Unfortunately, the supporting cast is uneven. For every solid appearance by a pro like Holbrook or James Spader, there is an amateurish impersonation by a grating non-actor like Sean Young or John McGinley. Hannah, too, is way out of her depth as a "sophisticated" uptown decorator. In the final analysis, however, the minor roles aren't terribly important. The focus is placed squarely on the lead players and their all-too-real games of Monopoly. What director Stone succeeds in making us see is that these are zero-sum games in which money, wealth and security are never made, only transferred from the losers to the winners. <p> <a name="clip"> <center><img src="../../../../review/img/www_subdomain/clip.gif" width="58" height="51" alt="clips"></center></a><br> <b><font size="+1">G</font>ordon Gekko:</b> You see that building over there? I bought it three years ago. My first real estate transaction. I sold it ten months later and made $800,000 profit. It was better than sex. At the time it was all the money in the world. Now it's a day's pay.<p> <center>***</center><p> <b>Bud Fox:</b> Why do you need to wreck this company?<br> <b>Gordon Gekko:</b> Because it's wreckable, all right?<p> <center>***</center><p> <b>Gordon Gekko:</b> The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed cuts through, clarifies, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. <p> <a name="smarts"> <center><img src="../../../../review/img/www_subdomain/smarts.gif" alt="smarts" width="89" height="45"></center></a><br> <font size="+1"><b>"W</b></font>all Street" is probably Oliver Stone's most entertaining and fast-moving film. Even so, it is occasionally heavy-handed; the scenes showing Charlie Sheen's character posing as a janitor and easily pilfering company secrets from conveniently unlocked file cabinets are even a little silly. Still, the movie does a great job of depicting the sensual allure of wealth and its trappings (there are enough loving close-ups of clothes, gadgets, accessories, and sumptuous meals to give the editors of the "Chic Simple" books wet dreams for a month), as well as the mad adrenaline rush of the stock exchange floor. With his trademark swooping cameras and jump-cut edits, Stone manages to make the world of finance exciting, suspenseful, and remarkably easy to follow. And while some have complained that the moralizing tone of the story and dialogue are either simplistic or out-of-date, an argument could also be made that the sharks are merely wearing suits of a different color in the '90s. You don't see a lot of Gordan Gekko types taking over companies, selling off the assets, and displacing the workforce these days. You do, however, see a lot of big mergers like the recent one between Time Warner and Turner. It's as if the corporations are raiding themselves before an outsider has a chance to stage a hostile takeover bid. The end results are familiar, though: A few fat cats at the top of the food chain become even more wealthy and the rank and file get screwed. The Time Warner/Turner merger is expected to result in the elimination of thousands of jobs -- but it made Ted "Captain Outrageous" Turner many billions richer <b>and</b> generated a big fat $50 million commission fee for '80s junk-bond poster boy Michael Milken. The more things change, the more they remain the same. <p> N.B. "Wall Street" is available on the Web for $14.99 from amazon.com.<br> <br clear="all"> </blockquote> <form method="POST" action="../../../../www_subdomain/bin/search/pursuit.html"> <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" align="RIGHT"> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="MIDDLE"> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/work_money.html" target="_top"></a></td> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="MIDDLE"> <a href="../../../../www_subdomain/work_money/index-html/anchor_toc.html" target="_top"></a></td> <td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT"> <select name="pod_name" onchange="self.top.podRedirect(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value)"> <option value="">Related Pods</option> <option value="Freebies">Freebies</option> <option value="MacComputing">Mac Computing</option> <option value="Second-Hand">Second-Hand</option> <option value="Smallbiz">SmallBiz</option> <option value="Travel">Travel</option> </select></td> </tr> </table> <br clear="ALL"><br> <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" align="RIGHT"> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="RIGHT"> <nobr><img src="../../../../img/www_subdomain/lycos_power.gif" border="0" alt="Lycos Powered" height="15" width="91"> <select name="cat"> <option value="tripod_www" selected>Search the Tripod Web Site <option value="tripod">Search Tripod Member Pages <option value="lycos">Search the Web</select></nobr></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="RIGHT"> <nobr><input type="text" size="20" name="query"> <input type="submit" value="Search"></nobr></td> </tr> </table> </form> <br clear="ALL"> </td> </tr> </table> </body>