The Turnaround on U Turn, Oliver Stone's Directing School Art Project

The Good: Some decent acting, Moments of character/intrigue
The Bad: Stone's directoral toying, Terrible characters, Feels long
The Basics: With violent, mean and unredeemably bad characters, U Turn tells a story of a man trapped in a backwater town that Oliver Stone sloppily creates.


When I was in college, possibly when I saw The Usual Suspects (reviewed here!) in the theater, I saw a preview for Oliver Stone's U Turn. Ever since then, it has been on my list to see and I was thrilled to find it on DVD (albeit a no-frills version) and I was excited to sit down and watch this movie. If anything, I was biased toward it from the previews I barely remembered. As the movie stretched on and on, the anticipation faded and the reality sunk in; there's a reason U Turn is almost never mentioned with Stone's classic works JFK and Natural Born Killers.

Bobby Cooper is driving through Arizona en route to paying off a gambling debt that has already cost him two fingers when the radiator tube in his car's engine ruptures and he is forced to get it repaired. In the desert, he finds the small town of Superior and a crazy hick mechanic named Darrell. While Darrell is repairing Bobby's car, he goes into the town where he encounters Grace. Grace is nice enough, recognizes his flirting and brings him back to her house. Bobby is attacked by her husband, Jake, who then approaches Bobby with a proposition; he'll give him money to kill Grace, a proposition Bobby rejects. Unfortunately for Bobby, he's at the site of a stick-up and the money he's carrying to pay off his debts gets shot up by a store owner who kills the robbers. As Bobby is tossed between Darrell and a psychopath named TNT, attracted to Grace and avoiding the law in the form of Sheriff Potter, he finds himself desperate to get out of Superior and in need of money he does not have.

U Turn has a number of elements that seem to set it up for greatness. It has a respected director (Oliver Stone), it has a decent cast that includes Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Lopez (remember when she was primarily an actress?), and Billy Bob Thornton. It has characters that are, at the very least, intriguing. It even has some truly brilliant lines. The problem is, almost none of them all come together at the same time.

Possibly the best moment - and this is in the trailer, so it's not revealing anything too big - is when Bobby, played perfectly in the scene by Sean Penn, turns to Darrell - played with gruesome perversity by Billy Bob Thornton - and with uncharacteristic wit says, "Forty thousand people die each day, how come you're not one of them?" Now that's an insult! Penn delivers the line well, to the right character at the right moment. It's a nice moment of cinematic quality that is not necessarily indicative of the rest of the film.

Bobby owes people money and they've lopped off some of his fingers so from the moment Bobby comes into the picture, the viewer knows we're not dealing with the morally upstanding citizens of the world. Writer John Ridley does not keep the viewer waiting long, with Darrell being the first character the very impatient Bobby encounters. Whatever sympathy we have for Darrell who is immediately insulted by Bobby, fades with his shifty ways and underlying meanness (to say nothing of his rotted smile).

In short, U Turn features a cast of almost entirely unlikable characters. Superior, Arizona is populated by rogues, killers and psychopaths who bully, bribe and sex their ways through life. And it gets old pretty quick. Unlike a movie like Payback (reviewed here!) where the viewer roots for the antihero because they have been, in some way, wronged and has some redeeming quality to them, U Turn has no such luck.

Throughout this movie, characters tell Bobby that they see within him the killer instinct, the ability to kill, something he claims he has never done before arriving at Superior. The thing is, whether they see it or not, Bobby's sense of desperation leads him to exercise what he's never seen within him before. It's that kind of weak characterization where there's no integrity that turns the viewer off to empathizing with him. Instead, the viewer shrugs and says, "Don't care what's coming to him now."

Even the abused Grace has moments where the viewer thinks her character might be redeemable. Alas, Ridley and director Oliver Stone mortgage that by making Grace even more shifty than her abusive husband Jake. To his credit, Stone chose well to cast Jennifer Lopez as Grace and Nick Nolte as Jake. Nolte is appropriately menacing as Jake and almost every moment he's on screen makes the viewer's skin crawl. Similarly, Powers Boothe is decent as Sheriff Potter.

What's unredeemable is Stone's directing. Stone plays with the camera like a film school student, cheapening almost every vital moment of the film by using camera techniques. A good (or great) director figures out how to use the medium to effectively tell the story they want. While I applaud experimentation, Stone's camera experiments fail to illuminate the story or more importantly the characters in U Turn. Instead, the abrupt clips are distracting, sloppy and annoying.

Whatever potential the rogues gallery of U Turn had of surviving the unlikability of the characters and the somewhat predictable (or standard) criminal underworld plot is mortgaged by Stone's direction which sinks this film out of being watchable. At least now, it's off my list. If it's on yours, you might want to take it off before you, too, are disappointed.

For other works by Oliver Stone, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Platoon
Wall Street
W.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

4/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Josh Brolin May Be Many Things, But He's No W.

The Good: Moments of character insight and decent direction, General format of story
The Bad: Pacing, Acting (casting), Light on DVD extras
The Basics: Oliver Stone's W. is strangely unsatisfying - especially to those who despise the administration of the former president - from the casting on down.


Having survived the administration of George W. Bush (which was not always a forgone conclusion in my case), I finally found myself at an emotional place where I was ready to open up to some entertainment about the former president. I had, previously, watched the documentary George W. Bush: Faith In The White House (reviewed here!) and been irked at the propaganda feel of that. So, when I felt ready to lighten up and allow myself to be entertained by the foibles of the former president, I got out W. on DVD. If there was anyone ready and eager for a film the ripped into the administration of George W. Bush, it was me.

Unfortunately, W. is not that film. Oliver Stone, strangely, takes the safest possible route creating a timid, neutral presentation on the 43rd president that ultimately makes no real statement in any direction. This is the story of a hapless man, trying desperately to live up to his father's expectations, not of greatness, but rather of productivity. In W. George H.W. Bush does not have aspirations that his son Junior will do anything extraordinary, merely that he will do something and stick with it long enough to accomplish something. Sadly, Oliver Stone allows most of the compelling moments in the last eight years fly by with little recognition of their importance or George W. Bush's role in creating the history we have just lived through.

Following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush and his cabinet and advisors consider how to strike back at those involved. As Bush's approval ratings soar, key members of his inner circle - Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice - encourage Bush to link Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks to allow a strike against Iraq by U.S. forces. As the speeches are altered and interrogation techniques are approved, the United States moves closer to war and George W. Bush considers how he got to the most powerful position in the world.

He reminisces of time in Texas and at Yale, his fraternity days and the times when he was just a young, rowdy guy who drank, danced and had sex with some blonde he didn't have money for a ring for. He dreams of baseball and catching a hit that might otherwise be a home run and he slouches from oil rigs to investment banking jobs to working on his father's presidential campaign, while George H.W. Bush continually bails him out of jams he gets in (sometimes literally). George W. Bush meets Laura, finds god, gets sober and on his father's campaign meets with the extremists in the Republican base, specifically Karl Rove, who sees in George W. Bush the potential to be the tool the ideologues need to restore their vision of America to the presidency.

W. might have succeeded has it not been released in 2008. Seriously. I write this not because the film would be any better years from now, nor because of the hope the Obama Presidency created to foster the impression many of Bush's most egregious positions and executive orders would be overturned, but rather because the film had to compete against Frost/Nixon. The strength of Frost/Nixon is arguably on the performance of Frank Langella, a man who neither looks nor sounds like former President Nixon. Langella could not (obviously) get over the first part, but within moments of his appearance on screen, Langella's body language and speech patterns are those of Richard Nixon. Langella transforms into Nixon and it is eerie and powerful to watch the movie because the performance is so amazing.

Sadly, Josh Brolin does not pull off George W. Bush. Josh Brolin, who impressed me with his performance in No Country For Old Men (reviewed here!), is cast to embody George W. Bush and he fails utterly, save two shots in the entire movie, one on the baseball diamond, one talking to his speechwriters with his hair rumpled. The rest of the time, Brolin utterly fails to embody Bush. It is not just that he does not look much like Bush, but Brolin does not move like the former president at all. Will Farrell had a much better take on George W. Bush for one simple reason; presenting a parody of George W. Bush often presents the most real body language of the man. Before those who still adore our previous president jump on that, go back and watch videos of George W. Bush; the man has a very loose body language. His head wobbles, when he speaks - especially in the early years of his administration - he shifts from foot to foot, and when he first appears before cameras, he looks more determined to not break into a smile than anything else. He's an easygoing guy . . . he's a GUY. What some found charming or appealing was his accessibility and that largely came from his body language of being a loose, cool guy one could sit down, have a beer with and watch the game with.

Josh Brolin completely fails to get that. He is stiff throughout W., treating everything as if it is serious and while he appropriately furrows his brow whenever anyone asks Bush to consider something, Brolin doesn't get the performance right. Thandie Newton, who plays Condoleezza Rice, pulls off her brief supporting role better than Brolin manages to get the main role.

Unfortunately, because so many of the figures are public figures still at the forefront of the American consciousness, the look of the characters is incredibly important and here the casting and make-up were not as precise as they ought to have been. Jeffrey Wright's Colin Powell's forehead is a little too high, Toby Jones's Karl Rove is too obviously toady and James Cromwell - whose work I usually adore - is hit or miss as George H.W. Bush depending on the scene. In fact, the only casting that is perfectly executed is Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney. Dreyfuss assumes the look and bearing of the former vice president perfectly, though he essentially replays his role from The American President to pull this off. Elizabeth Banks and Ellen Burstyn both evolve into the roles of Laura and Barbara Bush, respectively, but they do not appear on screen convincingly as either at their first appearances. Oliver Stone ought to get credit, though for taking two beautiful women and toning down their looks to try to fit the roles (conversely, Newton plays her Hollywood good looks perfectly in the role as Rice, who always seemed attentive to her appearance).

So, the casting is seriously off. Add to that, W. is poorly paced and more than the character lacking direction, there are too many portions where the viewer is left feeling like Oliver Stone does not know what he wants to be saying with the film. Ultimately, he ends up saying very little. As Bush is pressed toward war by Rove and Cheney, Powell stands as the lone dissenter and Bush gleefully steamrolls over his objections to the group's plans. Powell, unfortunately, is presented with only limited backbone and the viewer ends up feeling more empathy for him than for the hapless title character.

More than anything, Oliver Stone seems to be making a film that takes the tact that George W. Bush was a guy who did not truly care about anything who stumbled into the presidency. Once there, he was content to let others do what they felt, signing off on critical orders based on how many pages he was handed. He is not a caricature here as a witless man or incompetent president, merely a guy who roams uncaring through the world until he is at an important office that actually makes demands upon him. The character is not pitiable, nor is he or his exploits interesting to watch (just as many of us were uninterested in participating in his years as president).

Now on DVD, W. features a similarly listless and controversy-free commentary track by Oliver Stone where he avoids any real thorny issues and talks more about the making of his boring film. There are trailers for other Lionsgate films and there is a mildly more engaging featurette on the actual Bush Administration in which several liberals decry his policies without getting too specific or relating it back to the film.

And keep in mind, I was ready to like this film! But at the end of the day, I wanted W. to inform or entertain or some combination of both. It did neither. Instead, it plodded along for far too long with a guy who could be virtually any Southern or Midwestern heir doing little and evoking little empathy or interest for doing it.

For other works with Toby Jones, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Hunger Games
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
My Week With Marilyn
Captain America: The First Avenger
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part II
Frost/Nixon
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Ever After
Orlando

5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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War Is Hellish And Disturbing: Platoon Illustrates Well What We Already Know.

The Good: Tension, Acting, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Light on character development and plot, Voiceovers
The Basics: Powerful and graphic, Platoon is a great movie that is difficult to watch more than once.


I hate DVD packaging. I absolutely hate how DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are marketed and packaged. There are two extremes in the packaging of DVDs and Blu-Rays with almost none that fall into the middle ground: they either tell viewers nothing about what the movie or show inside are actually about (marketed as they are to the die-hard fans who are buying the movie or boxed set having already seen it and made it a box office success) or they reveal far too much. In the case of Platoon, the DVD case reveals far too much simply by revealing whose story the protagonist is based upon (I shall not ruin that here). But once that is known, the viewer has no real surprises. Even if it is a fictional account, knowing whose fictional account undermines the emotional intensity of portions of the movie.

This annoyed me especially as I knew nothing about Platoon going into it. My step brother, when I was young, had gotten to see it, which was a big deal as he was eleven at the time and it was a rated-R movie. Outside that, all I knew before ruining my first viewing by looking at the DVD box was what camp counselors had said when I was at summer camps; that the movie was supposedly made more terrifying by being able to hear all the insect noises and the sounds of footsteps while soldiers were going through the woods. So, having heard that, I turned the sound up on my surround sound system and watched the film.

Chris Taylor arrives in Vietnam as a volunteer who dropped out of college to enlist. Immediately, he is thrust into dangerous situations where he is fighting an enemy he almost never sees. The platoon Taylor is a part of is ethnically diverse and effectively led by two opposing sergeants, Barnes and Elias. Barnes, hardened by the war, is brutal and suspicious and while Elias is an efficient and cunning soldier, he has retained his moral core and conscience. Taylor is exhausted, insect-bitten and traumatized by the war almost immediately.

Taylor's group is assigned to find and destroy enemy bunkers as the guerilla fighters use underground tunnels and bunkers that are almost impossible to see. Frequently pinned down by the enemy, who then disappears back into the jungle, Taylor and Third Platoon succeed in finding a large cache of weapons in a village, which Barnes then torches. Sent out after, Barnes and Elias lead the platoon into a bloody and devastating encounter which leaves Taylor even more troubled by the war.

Platoon is very much an average war movie. As such, there is a protagonist who experiences a strong sense of shock as the world he knows is radically changed (this comes in the form of Taylor) and a lot of shooting. Platoon earns its "R" for the graphic depiction of war and it is not for the feint of heart. But director Oliver Stone's direction is problematic in that he makes it too real. Just as soldiers in the field had an impossible task of trying to tell where the enemy was, often there is little ability of viewers to tell who the enemy is and where they are at any given moment.

As well, Platoon is heavy with soldiers using drugs and doing their jobs as soldiers. It also includes the barbarism of war with scenes that include Taylor pulling soldiers off Vietnamese girls (not women, girls) and for as much conflict as there is with the guerilla fighters, there is conflict within the platoon. The viewer's sense of disgust is likely to peak early watching Barnes treat his fellow American soldiers despicably.

What Platoon has is a remarkably personal story of war. Taylor is an empathetic character and the viewer feels bed for him and all he goes through. Even though elements of his disillusionment are so common in war stories they are almost cliches, Taylor is a likable guy and the viewer is likely to be glad early on when he sides with Elias. Taylor may be surrounded by soldiers who are doing loathsome things, but he manages to maintain his humanity for the bulk of the film.

Because Oliver Stone so graphically portrays war, the voiceovers - like letters Taylor is having sent home - seem utterly unnecessary. The viewer does not need to be told how Taylor is feeling or what is going on; the film shows us that perfectly well. And what the film has in surprising quantities is great acting. Cast incredibly well, Platoon includes Keith David, Tony Todd, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, Johnny Depp, John C. McGinley and Tom Berenger. All of the men seem plausibly like soldiers. The standout in understated acting, though, comes from Willem Dafoe, who plays Elias. Elias is cool and smart and Dafoe bulked up physically for the role, but retains a level of articulation that makes his relatively moral character plausible.

But the real surprise of Platoon is how good the acting of Charlie Sheen is. Sheen plays Taylor and he is dramatically powerful. Sheen gives a performance that depicts emotional agony exceptionally well, including realistically portraying fear with just his eyes. Who would have guessed that Sheen could act so well? None of his lines are presented with anything but the right emotional resonance that the scene demands and he actually seems entirely plausible with Taylor's character arc.

On DVD, Platoon comes with a documentary on how the film was made, as well as a full-length commentary track with Oliver Stone. There is a second commentary track for the movie with a military advisor discussing the tactics and realism of the movie. There are also trailers for the movie, which give those who enjoy Platoon all sorts of extras worth watching.

Platoon is a difficult film to watch, but it is supposed to be. I finally started considering it above average because I came to accept that the lack of character development was part of the story. Taylor and the men of the Third Platoon do not grow or change (save from live to dead) because they are stuck in a fairly static bad position. The film adequately reinforces the idea that war is hell; for those who didn't know it before, this shows what that hell looks like.

And yes, when the soundtrack is not present, Stone does a great job of enhancing the mood with the jungle noises that surround the soldiers.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project available here! Please check it out!]

For other films about war or the effects of war, please check out my reviews of:
Shutter Island
The Men Who Stare At Goats
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Campy Dialogue, Still Timely Message: Wall Street Illustrates The Consequences Of Capitalism

The Good: Great acting, Interesting setting, Decent direction, Great DVD presentation, Engaging plot
The Bad: Some very campy dialogue, Somewhat predictable plot progression.
The Basics: Generally, Oliver Stone's indictment of the mindset of day traders and the ridiculously rich survives the test of time with Wall Street!


As audiences flock to the theaters to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (click here for my review!), I decided it was a good time for me to rewatch the original Wall Street. I had seen Wall Street back when I was in middle school and the truth is, I never thought about watching it again until I saw the movie posters for the sequel. It was not that Wall Street is bad, but it was not as memorable as many other movies I've seen or even that Oliver Stone has directed. Upon picking up and watching Wall Street on DVD in the new "20th Anniversary" two-disc set, I found myself underwhelmed by the film that many seem to hold up as one of the greats.

This is not to say that Wall Street is bad. But it certainly is dated. In fact, the reliance on jargon and the dated elements - design, filming, social attitudes - make the film an unfortunate jumble. To wit, while seeing the styles of the 1980s in interior design and the computer screens around the offices in the stockbroker scenes lends Wall Street a great sense of authenticity for the time. But then, in those same scenes when Bud Fox and his coworker Marvin are talking to one another and on the phone, the script is so loaded with jargon that is specific, over-the-top and unfathomable from context that it alienates the audience. In other words, while Oliver Stone and co-writer Stanley Weiser may have gotten the sound of stockbrokers in the 1980s down perfectly, the niche is so small that the audience is not likely to appreciate the time spent with characters bandying back and forth with lines that they cannot comprehend.

That said, outside the timely aspect of Wall Street and the dated portions that clearly capture 1985 and the sense of the economy and social mores in relation to investments, labor and ethics, the film actually illustrates a timeless tale of the seduction of a young stock broker into the world of high finance. There is a Faustian sense to the movie and Wall Street uses its setting well to explore a pretty timeless tale of the corruption of a brilliant young mind.

Bud Fox is a stockbroker working in a big firm in New York City in 1985, trying to land his big break investing for others by cold calling through a phone list. Each day, he calls Gordon Gekko and is blocked by Gekko's secretary. Determined, on Gekko's birthday, he arrives at Gordon's office with a gift and is granted five minutes of the investor's time. As the meeting begins to illustrate Gekko's disinterest in Fox and the few tips he has, Bud Fox reveals to Gekko that Blue Star Airlines is going to get a favorable ruling from the FAA, which will likely launch the stock and allow the airline to truly invest in expansion. Gekko explores the option, invests and begins to use Bud Fox as part of his investment team.

With a million dollars to invest, Bud Fox begins to invest to make Gordon Gekko and himself a lot of money (and strategically lose money). To keep ahead of the competition, Gekko has Fox spying on other businessmen, like Sir Larry Wildman, to get to sweet investments before Wildman can make them. As Bud Fox becomes more successful, Gekko provides him with perks like prostitutes and an ex-girlfriend Darien. The success alienates Fox from his union father, at Blue Star, and when Gordon Gekko looks to liquidate Blue Star, Bud Fox has to make a difficult choice about what is important to him.

There is a reason Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was made and that, quite simply, comes down to Gordon Gekko. The character is so delightfully bad that it was a well that went undertapped in Wall Street. Because Wall Street focuses so much on Bud Fox and his relentless pursuit of Gordon Gekko and the high life, Gekko's own character and life outside his financial dealings are seldom explored. Wall Street has a great dramatic villain in Gordon Gekko and the desire to revisit such a character makes perfect sense to me.

Despite the intrigue that surrounds a character who is almost inhuman like Gordon Gekko, Wall Street truly is Bud Fox's film. Wall Street chronicles his seduction, his interest and his motivations more than those of Gordon Gekko. Indeed, Gekko's goal is to simply make money and maintain, which is hardly interesting in a cinematic sense. But Bud Fox is truly about changing his entire life and lifestyle and an interesting argument could be made about who is using who more in Wall Street. After all, Gordon Gekko does not seek out Bud Fox; he is utterly disinterested in Fox until Fox uses his insider information to profit Gekko. But Fox needs Gekko to make his own dreams come true and the relentless pursuit of the lifestyle Gordon lives is pretty disheartening - at least for anticapitalists.

Wall Street succeeds, then, more on the strength of the performances and the classic themes than on the characters or even the use of the setting. Martin Sheen, for example, gives a wonderful supporting performance as Bud Fox's father. For me, it was delightful to see Sheen and Douglas on screen together - I had just rewatched The American President a few days prior! The scene Douglas and Martin Sheen share is loaded with great body language performances and seeing the two acting titans playing opposite characters brings out the best in both. Saul Rubinek and Daryl Hannah also provide decent supporting roles and, as a fan of Boston Legal, it was delightful to see a young James Spader in a supporting role as a lawyer friend of Bud Fox. In fact, the truncated storyline with his character could have used a little more fleshing out as opposed to the romance between Darien and Bud.

Michael Douglas won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gordon Gekko and this set off a long string of roles for Douglas where he plays characters who are either morally ambiguous or outright evil. Douglas has a great intensity to him and while in the role of Gordon Gekko he spits some of his most venomous lines with such a heavy amount of jargon as to make them almost incomprehensible, he sells the role on sheer charisma and force of character. He delivers Gekko's lines with an uncompromising quality that is absolutely convincing. Gekko is one of Michael Douglas's roles where we stop seeing Douglas and we only see Gekko.

Almost as good, believe it or not, is the role of Bud Fox for Charlie Sheen. While some might argue that a workaholic playboy is hardly a stretch for Charlie Sheen, Sheen has a steely set to his eyes in many of the scenes that make it plausible that he could have gotten to his starting position using hard work, dedication and charisma. At the same time, despite not being fleshed out with a set of dreams of his own (Bud Fox enables Darien some), the goals he does have seem to make him predisposed toward the type of seduction Gordon Gekko represents. Sheen actually plays perfectly for those vulnerabilities. There are moments Sheen brings weakness into the eyes and shoulder set of Bud Fox that make his failings entirely realistic.

On DVD, Wall Street comes with a pretty impressive (especially for this type drama) two-disc special edition. Alongside the primary film, there is a commentary track which notes the context of the film, as well as shooting issues and is enjoyable for fans of Oliver Stone's works. The second disc has featurettes, deleted scenes and the movie's original trailers. There are a few hours of entertainment and education which will delight fans.

But ultimately, Wall Street is just a classic tale put in a relatively new setting and those who despise greed and corruption will likely squirm through more of the movie than they will enjoy.

For other dramatic films, please check out my reviews of:
Shutter Island
Strawberry And Chocolate
The Spitfire Grill

8/10

For other film reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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A Sequel Too Smart For Summer Starts Fall Movie Season With Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The Good: Good story, Good acting, Good characters
The Bad: Pacing, Some jargon.
The Basics: While a little slow in parts, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps returns Gordon Gekko to freedom and he sets his sights on reconciling his broken relationship with his daughter.


As summer winds to a close with inane comedies and dramas that would not hold their own during the spectacle times of Summer Blockbuster Season, I find myself - like many movie reviewers - in a lull until the Christmas Blockbuster push and Oscar Pandering Season. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps promises to buck the trend of the September Slump.

When I first saw the movie poster for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, I thought, "That's an odd choice for a sequel" and "I can't wait for Shia LaBeouf's bubble to pop!" But as inane comedies hit theaters alongside back-to-school date movies, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps offers a very different option for movie viewers and it is an option moviegoers ought to exercise. It has been years since I watched Wall Street, but the film catches the viewer right up with the important aspects of that film in order to watch this blind. However, for those who want to be surprised by Wall Street (click here for my review!), they must stop reading now. It is impossible to discuss Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps without referencing the consequences of the end of Wall Street. That said . . .

After years in prison, white collar criminal Gordon Gekko is paroled for his abuses of Wall Street trading and he finds himself unable to work in the financial markets again. Even so, by 2008, he sees a the bloated market and attempts to warn those still in financial power that a downturn is coming, but is ostracized at virtually every turn. He sees his “in,” however, with Jacob. Jacob is a young investment banker who is working his way up at Keller Zabel. Idealistic, he is troubled because he begins to suspect rival investment banker Brenton James of corrupt activities, but is unable to prove it. Gordon enters his life when Jake introduces himself at a lecture, as Gordon's daughter's fiancé. Winnie, Gordon's daughter, still loathes Gordon and the ever-calculating Gordon sees helping Jake as a step on the road to redemption with his daughter.

But soon, Brenton James – the manager of  Churchill-Schwartz, where Jake goes to work after Keller Zabel collapses – begins covering his tracks well and he reveals himself to be a virtual disciple of Gordon’s “greed is good” ideals. With Gordon pulling the strings, Jacob works to prove just how corrupt James truly is.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the movie Oliver Stone’s other film, W. should have been. W. was a character study that failed to truly explore or extrapolate the consequences of one man’s actions. By contrast, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is almost entirely about consequences and Stone beats the viewer over the head with that idea. James is suffering the consequences of (allegedly) driving Lewis Zabel to his death, Gordon is suffering the consequences of his manipulations of the market and Bud Fox, Winnie is suffering the consequences of lacking a father figure for so many years. But even as Jacob works to prove Bretton James’ crimes, he moralizes about what getting in bed with Gordon actually means and he, arguably, is the one most aware of the potential negative consequences of his actions.

The brilliance of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is not that director Oliver Stone and writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff keep one guessing about whether or not prison has truly reformed Gordon Gekko or not. Gordon is Gordon and manipulation is what he does. From almost his first scene, the viewer knows he is up to something and it does not take long for that to start to be made explicit in ways that are enjoyable to watch. The initial confrontation between Gordon and Winnie gives Gordon a wonderful goal: to try to get back in his daughter’s good graces. From the moment Gordon sets his mind to that, the brilliance of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is not that Gordon is reformed, it is how he uses the same influences and manipulations to achieve a personal goal that he used to achieve his professional goals. In other words, no matter how bad Bretton James is supposed to be, Gordon Gekko’s manipulations always have at least as seedy a sensibility to them.

And, because of the Jacob/Bretton plot, there is plenty of money changing hands and financial information being spewed about. And this, naturally, puts Gordon Gekko close to the field that he is legally prevented from entering.  It also leaves many viewers confused by the jargon. It is unsurprising how Gordon manipulates Jake in the same arena and one of the saving graces of the movie is that even while it is bogged down with exploring the idea of consequences, it also explores the basic human desire for revenge. When Jake loses Zabel, something in him does snap to the irrational and the exploration of the drive to right the wrong makes his character interesting, even when the viewer feels he is just a puppet to Gordon.

Michael Douglas reprises his role of Gordon Gekko for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and he is able to humanize the character some by playing off his own charm, especially in early scenes between Jake and Gordon. But during key monologues, Douglas re-establishes the charisma and coldness that made Gordon such a great villain in Wall Street and there is an unbroken strength to the character and the performance that resonates quite strongly.

As for Shia LaBeouf, this is arguably his best work since he played Richie Lupone as a kid on The X-Files. Yes, I go that far back for a time I liked LaBeouf’s performance, but as Jacob he brings a detachment and stiffness that actually works wonderfully for making him seem to be a credible member of the financial community. In fact, his weakest moments are those when he has to be credibly in love with Carey Mulligan’s Winnie Gekko. LaBeouf may not sell the basic human love connection, but he performs well with the jargon surrounding both money and revenge. And the movie does have a lot of jargon to it.

Carey Mulligan is arguably the human heart of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. She plays an adult level of hurt beautifully and she holds her own for screen presence against Michael Douglas. Josh Brolin, Charlie Sheen and Frank Langella give memorable supporting or cameo performances (Sheen’s appearance is rather minor) that tie together the world of the Wall Street films quite well.

Ultimately, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a split movie that only truly comes together in the final scenes. It is half a revenge story with a wounded young man pairing with a master manipulator, it is half a financial story of the consequences of rampant greed. But ultimately, the film is about the dehumanizing nature of unrestrained capitalism and that is as poignant today as it was twenty-plus years ago.

For other movies featuring Michael Douglas, please check out my reviews of:
Wonder Boys
The Game

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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