Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Money Never Sleeps, But You Probably Will
The Story:
Emerging from a lengthy prison stint for insider trading and securities fraud, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) finds himself on the outside of a world he once dominated. Looking to repair his damaged relationship with his daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gekko forms an alliance with her fiance Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf), and Jacob begins to see him as a father figure.
In the other hand, Jacob, a young Wall Street trader partners, is trying to alert the financial community to the upcoming doom, which connected to the death of his mentor. Jacob also soon has to learn the hard way about Gekko, who is after something very different from redemption.
Release Date: September 24, 2010
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Any Given Sunday, Alexander)
Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Josh Brolin
Budget: $60,000,000 – $70,000,000
Gross Revenue: $52,474,616 (USA) and $130,632,932 (worldwide)
Review:
There’s obviously a great risk when you’re trying to make a sequel of a movie from 23 years ago, that’s why it would be a wise choice if producer put the same old director and actor in it. Michael Douglas collaborated again with director Oliver Stone in Money Never Sleeps, a direct sequel of Wall Street (1987), a hit movie that granted Douglas an Oscar for Best Actor.
Those who haven’t seen the first movie don’t need to worry, because they can catch the plot pretty quickly. After spent eight years in prison for insider trading, Gordon Gekko is finally released. He then spent the next seven years of his free life as an author and lecturer, and is now promoting his new book, Is Greed Good?
Apparently, Gekko fame is upsetting his daughter Winnie, who always blames him as the reason of the suicide of her brother, Rudy. Knowing this, Winnie’s fiance Jacob “Jake” Moore is trying to contact Gekko in order to reconcile the father and daughter. Besides for this reason, Jake also seeks advice from Gekko about the next financial crisis that about to happen soon.
Now, this is where the story getting messy and lost its focus. There are to many side plots that distract viewer from the main story of financial market. Winnie who despises her father for what he’s done, but in the other hand wants to marry a guy that has the same job as Gecko. Gecko unclear motive after his freedom, whether he seeks a redemption, or trying to re-dominated the financial world again. Then there is Jake who’s trying to warn the community about the upcoming financial doom, while he’s also being bothered by his relationship with Winnie and Gekko.
And if you think that with so many plots gonna make the pace of this movie fast and full of twist, then you’ve got it wrong. It’s slow, and also a little bit confusing, especially for those who dislikes stock exchange and finance story. The conclusions of all conflicts also quite predictable.
Although, it doesn’t mean that this movie hasn’t got any strength. The cast is good, especially breakthrough actress Carey Mulligan and Michael Douglas, who’s granted with Golden Globe’s nomination for Best Actor in Supporting Role. Only Shia LaBeouf that a little bit unconvincing with his role. It will probably better if Douglas is the one who took the main actor part, just like 23 years ago.
By the way, you’ve probably learned one or two things about stock exchange after watch Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. But if you want to search something that literally “never sleeps”, you should try forex exchange instead, because Forex market opens 24 hours a day. With the accurate forex trading analysis, you can gain a better leverage with much less risk, compared to stock trading.
My Rating: C+
IMDb user rating: 6.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes meter: 54%
Metacritic:59/100
Yahoo! critics: B-
Yahoo! users: B
Your Ratings: 
(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.
