"Last year, ladies and gentlemen, 40% of all American corporate profits came from financial services. Not production, not anything remotely to do with the needs of the American public. The truth is, we're all part of it now. Banks, consumers -- we're moving money around in circles." — Gordon Gekko

That's an everlasting prescient monologue by Gekko, and there's more where that came from. There's still not enough of it. This belated sequel was more than competent, it contains numerous passages of knowledgeable industry acumen, and sometimes it's simply Very Good. For a few minutes here and there, I mutter, "Alright now, this is getting very On-Track!"

Somehow, though, it just doesn't please us by telling us a streamlined story.…

Angry Oliver Stone targeting his missiles on bankers again right in the middle of The Biggest Financial Crisis Ever. It's got greed, baddies and human tragedy. What a fantastic time for this movie.

Oh.

We seem to have a poorly structured mess that dips its toes in 'family drama', before ruining it with a rushed unrealistic resolution. What is the point of building character for an hour or so, and then having those characters react in a way that contradicts what you've learnt about their personalities.

It also dips its toes into a simplistic financial corruption story (I could tell it was simplistic because I actually understood it- I don't need to understand- I just need it to be plausible).…

Given the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps takes quite a few jabs at the corporal greed and corruption that ran rampant during that turmolous era ib American history. But that doesn't mean it always works. In fact, more often than not, the film reaches the point where what it has to say equates to "preaching to the choir".

Similar stories have been told and indeed, in a much better fashion than here with Oliver Stone's several years too late sequel. What does work here are the performances - Shia Lebouf isn't annoying and actually fits well, Carey Mulligan has quite an onscreen presence and Michael Douglas unsurprisingly rises above the crop…

It has been 20 years since the last great Oliver Stone film (JFK), and whilst I don't think everything he has made since has been bad it does feel like he has been wasting his talent (especially with the last few films). Returning to one of his most famous movies is not necessarily a bad idea, especially seeing how relevant it is to today's global economic climate, but is this a case of reliving past glories?

The answer is a crushing yes. I was kind of expecting this to be disappointing but it blew harder than even I imagined. I'll get the good bits out of the way first - the cast. They are all fine, Shia appears a bit…

It was never much of a surprise to me that Oliver Stone would revisit one of his finest films for a sequel, especially after the financial crash of 2008. Wall Street back in 1987 won its star Michael Douglas an Academy Award, and gave his career a shot in the arm, but Stone's film wasn't all about Gordon Gekko's character. It also put the spotlight on those unscrupulous Wall Street cunts who raked in millions of dollars by gambling with Ma & Pa Kettles' savings in the financial markets. Stockbrokers were given a bad name by Gekko's character, his "greed is good" slogan became one of those phrases yuppies threw about like the $100 dollar bills they popped into stripper's garter…

“What can I do to fix this?”
“I don’t know. It’s different now.”

It definitely has a bit of that 2000’s Hollywood sheen on it, but I prefer the proto-Succession vibes this gives off over the typical rise-and-fall story of the original (and it’s true spiritual successor, The Wolf of Wall Street). I loved the melodrama between Shia’s character and basically everyone else. I know he doesn’t, but I miss seeing him in big roles like this. Stone direction is less chaotic and more direct, akin to the first film’s controlled handle on things. Some of the “tech” transitions haven’t aged well, but I didn’t mind it. In all it’s cynicism, there’s an earnest center to it all, which I…

Abarbeiten der ungesehenen Filme in meiner Sammlung #1

Film Nr. 4: Wall Street: Das Geld schläft nicht

Obwohl ich, anders als die Allgemeinheit, die Fortsetung zu Oliver Stones Klassiker aus den späten 80ern für einen guten Film halte, hätte man aus diesem noch viel mehr machen können. Denn anstatt sich auf die Nachkommen Gordon Gekkos zu konzentrieren, hätte man meiner Meinung nach Charlie Sheen als Bud Fox erneut als Hauptrolle engagieren sollen und somit die Story Gekko gegen Fox weitererzählen sollen. Doch leider muss sich der Zuschauer mit einem einminütigen Aufeinandertreffen der beiden Kultfiguren zufriedengeben und sich ansonsten eine Handlung ansehen, die zwar sehr gelungen, aber längst nicht so interessant wie sie hätte sein können ist.

Nichtsdestotrotz finde ich es…

I said in my review for Wall Street that I didn’t understand Wall Street both in terms of how stocks work, and how people actually live their lives cutting deals. Just as I don’t understand stocks I don’t understand what happened during the Wall Street crash. This film doesn’t even try to explain it to you. One minute we’re following the story (as it is) and then boom the crash comes in and the film expects you to understand what the hell is going on. 
A boring, aimless, and unneeded sequel that adds nothing to the original, nor has anything really to say. The cameo from Charlie Sheen feels really weird and forced, and it turns out he ended up…