09/28/10 - Wall Street

Wall Street (1987, 126 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/

As I get ready for a hopeful viewing of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps this coming weekend, I need to first check out the 1987 original. It's an odd classic from what I can figure as lots of people have seen it and it's entered pop culture but it never seems to top many lists for that time period. Anyway, I usually like movies in this genre so I was looking forward to it.

The film stars Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox who is trying to make it big on Wall Street. He basically latches on to the hot shot Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) who is a master at wheeling and dealing. The film follows Fox as he struggles between the "Greed is good" philosophy of Gekko and his morals. Other main roles: Martin Sheen as Carl Fox, Bud Fox's dad and union representative of Bluestar, a company that Gekko is interested in; and Daryl Hannah as Darien Taylor, the love interest of Bud Fox.

This film has really great characters and that's what mainly stands out to me. First off, the group is really led by Gekko. One cool thing is how sleazy the name Gordon Gekko sounds. It gives him a slimy quality due to the similarity to gecko and this really fits his personality. On the other hand we have Bud Fox who is well constructed and has a good character arc in my opinion. It was easy to see that he was struggling with his inner beliefs as they conflict with Gekko. Finally, the other main character is Carl Fox. Here, we have a brilliant portrayal by Martin Sheen, but the character serves as the stereotypical "little man" standing up against big business. And this last part is where Wall Street really shines in my opinion. There's tons of stereotypical characters here that serve to make a statement. For example there's the comic relief of John C. McGinley's Marvin, there's the wise sage in Lou Mannheim played by Hal Holbrook, and there's the even a personal rivalry constructed through Sir Larry Wildman played by Terence Stamp. While I feel like Marvin sometimes is too annoying (this is mainly on McGinley who's style of comedy sometimes comes off as out of place), on the whole these characters work extremely well for what they are meant to do. Sure, they're somewhat flat as almost all character development is spent on Bud and Gekko, but they still serve to move the story along in precisely the right way.

One thing I came across as I read about this movie was that it is frequently touted as the example of 1980s excess. I actually disagree with this as I reserve that spot for another Oliver Stone film in Scarface. In an odd way, I don't think the movie really deals that much with the actual things one gets with money. Sure, Gekko has a huge house and pointless paintings and all that but these things really only come up briefly. I feel that Wall Street is more about the obtaining of money and how you will desperately try to cling to it. I think the one line about it being worse to lose money than to have never had it (said by Darien) sums up the movie more than the more often quoted line of "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."

With all that being said, I think Oliver Stone never really films movies in a real world. Everything is exaggerated and over-the-top. Just look at Scarface. Here is the same and that's why those stereotypical characters work so well. Stone constructs one or two really cool characters and then fills the movie with these flat characters that balance everything really well. Is there even remotely a character arc for Darien? Not really. What about any of the secondary characters? Again not really. But the conflict between Bud and Gekko is so enthralling that it makes up for it.

However, this brings me to my main flaw of Wall Street. Perhaps contradicting what I just said, I feel that Wall Street just sort of ends abruptly and leaves some questions unanswered. The Bud and Gekko issue is over so I guess it's time for the movie to end. But I've already sat there for 120 minutes so I'd like some of those secondary questions to get answered. Stuff like the relationship between Darien and Gekko never really did much and Gekko never really threatened Bud with that except for once very briefly. There's a few other unresolved questions that are just seemingly forgotten once Bud gets arrested. And to further expand on that, I felt like for the most part, the pacing of the movie was excellent (I never felt like two hours was too much) until the end there. Once Bud gets arrested, it seems like a whole bunch of stuff is crammed way too close together. I actually think another fifteen minutes to the film could've served to resolve some more stuff but that might just be me.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. Wall Street was really fun to watch for the most part. The character of Gordon Gekko was extremely fascinating. Sadly, the movie just didn't have that "it" or something that would allow me to push it up to a 7/10. I look forward to the sequel.