Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) is a sequel to the 1987 movie, Wall Street. Michael Douglas reprises his role as Gordon Gekko.Synopsis: It's the year 2008, the dawn of the financial crisis. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) has just been released from prison after serving eight years for insider trading and securities fraud. His estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is engaged to a young proprietary trader, Jacob "Jake" Moore (Shia LaBeouf) who works at Keller Zabel Investments (KZI) owned by Louis Zabel (Frank Langella). Zabel is also Jacob's mentor and close friend.
After Zabel committed suicide, Jacob plots revenge against Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who's suspected of being responsible for Zabel's death. He meets up with Gekko and they team up whereby Jake will get information to bring down James and Gekko will be reconciled with his daughter.
This is not a meaningless popcorn movie. This movie focuses heavily on the multidimensional relationship of its characters, i.e. between Jacob & Zabel, Jacob & Gekko, Jacob & Winnie, and Winnie & Gekko. At times, this movie drags on with conversations full of financial jargon that could be potentially confusing. However, I find them educational and interesting.
The cast's performance is very good. The older actors, i.e. Michael Douglas, Frank Langella, and even the 96-year old Eli Wallach are like gems in the movie. Their "oldness" is delicately balanced by young and fiery Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan as well as Josh Broslin who plays the main villain in this movie, sort of like Gekko during his younger days.
A moment of realization: No matter what age group you are in, you will experience the financial crisis once or more in your life. Scary, right? Better start practicing smart financial planning. You never know when the bubble will burst. Please don't end up on the train tracks or in front of a tall building, splattered.
Here are two very interesting quotes by Gordon Gekko:
"The mother of all evil is speculation."
"Stop telling lies about me and I'll stop telling the truth about you."
Very true indeed. Be it business or interpersonal, relationships crumble when there are negative speculations and lies. Who knows? Maybe some "truth" out there are lies; and some "lies" out there are actually the truth.
If you long to watch a thought-provoking movie, this one is definitely for you.
Posts
No comments