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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Movie Review
Grade: C-
In a decade where franchise reboots are of the norm, Oliver Stone brings back his eighties dog-eat-dog film in a perfect time corresponding with present-day economic turmoil. With his sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Stone delivers a solid and entertaining film, even though it is not quite sure which direction it wants to take.
Money Never Sleeps is set two decades after the original film, where hotshot stock investor Gordon Grekko (Michael Douglas) has been just released from prison. Instead of the villainous character Douglass portrayed in the original, Grekko decides to try to reestablish his relationship with his scornful daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Winnie’s fiance, Jacob Moore (Shia Lebouf), is a corporate trader who works for an investment bank that soon fails. After his mentor dies, Moore attempts to take revenge and takes on Gorden Grekko as his mentor.
Stone’s film is driven by its witty dialogue and interesting plot twists. The dialogue is essentially what this film has to offer, as it is extremely talky, which is not at all bad. This is actually the positive aspect of the movie, because the final product is an intriguing but ineffective look at the economic crisis done in a much theatrical manner. The communication between the characters create the anger, the melodrama, and most importantly, moves the film forward. If you do not mind some intellectual thought about economics, Wall Street 2 is never uninteresting.
Although Wall Street 2 strives in its dialogue, it is overly unorganized . Stone tries to stylize the movies as if it was Fight Club, when the movie would have been more emotionally effective if it shot in a raw fashion. But the biggest flaw of the movie is that there are way too many subplots, there is no focus. Is the movie about Grekko making right with his daughter? Labeouf’s revenge of his mentor? Or the love story between Mulligan and Lebouf? The film certainly does not know what to focus on which makes Money Never Sleeps obviously unorganized. Each of the subplots have unsatisfying endings. While these subplots are still interesting and entertaining, it feels as if the film did not have enough time to address all of the conflicts between the characters.
Money Never Sleeps is a good film, but that is all what it is. It had the potential to be thoughtful theatrical commentary on our current economic crisis, but its messiness just makes it seem as if it was a compressed miniseries. The film’s dialogue makes it highly intriguing, but it just is not enough to make Money Never Sleeps anything more than entertainment. Grade: C-
