Films can be so important that they not only become part of popular culture, but also in many ways define the age in which they were made. However, that doesn’t mean that such films have to be extraordinarily good. One of such films is Wall Street, 1987 drama directed by Oliver Stone.
The plot is set in 1985 New York. Protagonist, played by Charlie Sheen, is Bud Fox, young man who, despite coming from humble working-class family from Queens, managed to get job in Manhattan brokerage firm Jackson Steinem & Co. He works hard as stock broker, while dreaming about becoming major Wall Street financier. His hero and role model is Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas), immensely successful and powerful businessman with whom he desperately wants to work. After many unsuccessful attempts, Gekko grants him interview but Fox manages to get his attention only after casually mentioning information about Bluestar Airlines, company where his father Carl (played by Martin Sheen) works as mechanic and union representative. The company, which is financially struggling, becomes target of Gekko’s takeover, while Gekko hires Bud to manage his capital. Bud becomes successful after spying and collecting inside information about Gekko’s rival Sir Lawrence Wildman (played by Terence Stamp) and receives large amounts of money, luxury apartment and Darien Taylor (played by Daryl Hannah), attractive interior decorator who becomes his girlfriend. When he learns that Gekko’s ultimate plans with Bluestar Airlines include dissolution of the company and leaving all staff unemployed, he turns against his mentor not knowing that the price will be much higher than he anticipated.
Stone made this film shortly after Platoon, his “Oscar”-awarded retelling of Vietnam War experience. Many critics compared two films and noticed that Stone had invested somewhat less passion in this film, which isn’t that surprising, since the subject matter was somewhat less personal (Stone’s father Lou have worked as stock broker during Great Depression). Stone is, however, known as very passionate critic of American society and politics and for him the subject matter was anything but irrelevant. While Platoon dealt with American mistakes of the past, Wall Street dealt with mistakes of the present. Script, written by Stone and Stanley Weiser, was inspired by major Wall Street scandals in mid 1980s involving so-called “masters of the universe”, major financiers whose enormous success at the market was often based on inside information, stock manipulation and other illegal activities. Many of such characters and their wealth, hard to fathom for ordinary citizens, symbolised unrestrained capitalism of Reagan’s America. Stone had good fortune to have his film released shortly after October 1987 stock market crash, which reminded public of the dangers unrestrained greed at the financial markets could pose towards economy and society in general. Relevance of the subject and Stone’s “Oscar” reputation allowed for the film to do well at the box office and receive favourable reviews among critics.
Stone directed film well, but was faced with serious problem with the script. Unlike struggle for survival in Vietnamese jungles, corporate shenanigans were something quite difficult to present to ordinary audience. Stone strove for the authenticity, having characters inspired by real persons and at times giving interesting insight into the stylish and high-tech world of Wall Street finance; as such, Wall Street is often described as the first major Hollywood film in which character uses modern cell phone. However, the characters’ action are at times barely comprehensible. This problem is, to a degree, compensated with very good cast which tries to play their roles as archetypes. Charlie Sheen is quite good in the role of a young man who gets seduced by power and easy money only to fall out of grace and end seeking redemption. Sheen was, however, much better in Platoon as member of ensemble cast. Here he plays the protagonist and has misfortune of having two formidable and much better actors playing his two fathers – veteran Martin Sheen as his real and good father, while Michael Douglas plays his evil and “symbolic” father. Douglas is, in the end, actor who comes out as the real star of the film. Helped by impeccable style and armed with ability to convey charm of corporate psychopath, his character easily seduces not only young Bud but also the audience. The infamous “greed is good” speech (inspired by the speech of real life Wall Street financier Ivan Boesky) became not only the embodiment of mores of 1980s upper-class, but also a message apparently taken literally by many young men in the audience who saw Gekko as their hero and role model. Wall Street thus, inadvertently, became promotion of the very thing he tried to criticise.
The rest of the cast was adequate, with the exception of Daryl Hannah, whose character seemed redundant and whose performance was so bad that it got her Razzie for Worst Actress. Another deficiency of Wall Street is music score by Stewart Copeland, which is rather forgettable and not worthy of such ambitious film. But the greatest flaw of Wall Street was in its failure to act as a proper warning towards future generations. Instead, greed remained and financial manipulations continued until another major stock market crash, that would ultimately inspire Stone to make predictably weak sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Even those lessons weren’t learned and the world continued to get sucked into the spiral of economic ruin and wars. Because of that, Wall Street, although a good film, is likely to make some of today’s viewers bitter about decades of lost opportunities.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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