Plot: Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), the bad guy in the first Wall Street movie gets released from prison after 13 years. It's 2007, and he writes a book about the pending financial collapse of 2008, and soon young Wall Streeter Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) tracks him down. Jake is engaged to Gordon's daughter Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan). In the meantime Jake loses his job working at a Lehman Brothers-like investment bank when it goes bankrupt due to toxic assets. Jake gets a job at a rival company and hooks up with with Gordon for advice. Gordon wants to reconcile with Winnie, and Jake tries to set that up. As the financial crisis of 2008 unfolds, there is narrative about the bank crisis and Federal Reserve actions, as well as much moaning about "moral hazard."
Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is uneven. It has some excellent scenes especially at the beginning before Michael Douglas enters the story. There are some wonderful and poetic visuals that are worth seeing. I loved the richness of the sets. The weakest part of the movie was the preaching by Michael Douglas: no one talks like that. The dramatic scenes with Michael Douglas were not that good either.
The Shia LaBeouf scenes are strong though, and I liked his scenes with Carey Mulligan too.
The plot involving the fusion power company struck me as clever. I liked how it was threaded through the movie. The plot was well-crafted to deal with the issues of the financial crisis without being too pedagogical. I suspect that someone without much financial background might be lost though.
I liked the ending. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was enjoyable, but lacked consistent dramatic or artistic content; it is a near miss.
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Milligan
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Rating: 3.0, almost 2.5 but I liked the ambition and the subject matter.
More: They said "moral hazard" over and over again, but seldom used it correctly.
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