Wall Street

Although this is written and directed by Oliver Stone (whom we have rhapsodized over in the past), it leaves much to be desired. I think that Stone oversteps himself here, by trying to create an allegory out of what is inherently allegorical. That is to say he tells a cautionary tale about a young man brought low by greed and ambition by giving us a story about... a young man brought low by greed and ambition. This seems a little self-reflexive. The insider trading scandal hardly needs an expose; nothing could blow the lid off of it better than it blew its own lid off. (What could be better than seeing actual live footage of traders being brought out in cuffs? Nothing. (And those feet have the benefit of being authentic).) So. If the film gives us allegory where we don't need it, and provides an expose of something that is already exposed, what are we left with? An exercise, is what.

In fact, sometimes this reminded me of a project that Stone might have worked on in film school, to see if he had mastered the tools of the trade. And that he has. The film is skillfully directed, nicely photographed, and lavishly produced, and he does manage to elicit some decent (and one marvelous) performances from his cast. So good for you, Olly, you are capable of making a decent picture. But we already knew that. And truth be told, I'm wondering if we aren't finding out that Stone is a much better writer than he is a director. At least the films he has written but not directed (“Scarface,” “Midnight Express”) have packed a powerful wallop, and while “Platoon” was a triumph, I wonder if that wasn't mainly the function of Stone's having lived through that experience (Vietnam) himself.

Having said all that, I contend that the flaw in Wall Street is in the writing (of course, having the scandal be two years old by the time the picture came out didn't help any either). It's almost as if Stone weren't really interested in the subject, despite what he says ("believe the writing, not the writer") And just because the subject was topical, and his father was a big shot banking guy doesn't mean that it makes a good subject for a movie, or, even if it does, that it is a movie that Stone should feel obligated to make. The whole picture is just a little tepid; the narrative structure is so meticulously structured (and therefore so predictable), so symmetrical, that it seems more a triumph of modernist architecture than of filmmaking. What seems to be lacking is passion. I mean, here it is: boy meets evil; boy gets evil; boy turns the tables on evil; boy loses (having learned his lesson) evil. Even the contrast between the evil Gekko and our hero's straight shootin' dad (which is the choice Bud is forced to make-though he doesn't make the"right" choice intil we have seen that Gekko is a bare-faced liar; it might have madea much more interesting movie if the issue wasn't so black and white) is so flagrant that it drains all of the suspense out of the dilemma. As I said, it would have been much more interesting if it were a little more gray; if, for example, Gekko's schemes HAD some inherent validity, or if Bud's dad played a few shady games of his own.

But this is straight “High Noon,” Gary Cooper style good and bad, but without the gunplay to redeem it. I think we may be beyond that point, in any genre besides that of the thriller. May I say by way of an aside that I can't decide if casting Martin and Charlie Sheen as father and son was a good enough idea to merit doing it; it may be that the constant "ooh they really ARE father and son... isn't that NEAT?"-ness of it distracts too much from the film itself (not unlike “The Long Riders”). So what do we have here. besides the hardly debatable points that greed is bad, money isn't everything, and the powerful are at times inclined to abuse that power?

What is the payoff, or, more precisely pmt, why should you see this movie? For one main reason: Michael Douglas. His Gordon Gekko is a masterful characterization; he steals the movie (fittingly enough). He is charming, disarming, ruthless, oily, threatening, and utterly convinced of the correctness of his worldview. And he is damned good at what he does. Watching the performance is like watching a tiger in its cage; you are glad he is inside it (though it is disconcerting to realize that there probably are people out there just like that, doing things just like he does). You learn a little about the mechanics of stock-buccaneering (in as much detail as the public is presumed to be able to grasp (I'm sure it is often much more complex that this), and the rest of the performances are good (though Daryl Hannah is largely wasted in a role that is poorly written and mostly just inexplicable, except as just another toy that power and money can buy, which is kind of insulting) but Douglas is the focal point; he never fails to catch our eye. He won an Oscar for this performance, and you know what? He deserved it.