Wall Street (1987)

 

Wall Street

It is entirely fitting to review “Wall Street” and “Fatal Attraction” back-to-back. Both are iconic 80’ies movies, both feature Michael Douglas in starring roles and both are concerned with madness. In “Wall Street”, the madness is that of the financial markets.

Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is working in a stock market company doing cold calls to potential buyers. This is obviously a very junior role and with his fancy education and high ambitions, he is very hungry for more. He dreams of landing one of the big clients and few are bigger than Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Fox is very insistent on getting that crucial interview with Gekko, but when he finally gets it, Gekko is unimpressed. Only when supplying inside information on the Bluestar company, where Fox father, Carl Fox (Martin Sheen), works, does Gekko get interested.

Bud Fox lands Gordon Gekko, but on the terms that Fox finds “secret” information, things nobody else knows, to give Gekko an edge. This is highly illegal, but Gekko is very persuasive and Fox is hungry for the wealth and success. Gekko even “grants” him a nice girlfriend, Darien Taylor (Daryl Hannah).

This lasts up to the point where Fox convinces Gekko to invest massively in Bluestar to turn the company around, only to find out that Gekko secretly plans to liquidate the company and cash in on the assets. Fox is not fond of that idea and sets out on a rescue mission.

One thing you need to know about Oliver Stone is that he always makes political movies. He is always going after something and in this case, it is the moral bankruptcy of the financial markets, symbolized by the New York Stock Exchange (Wall Street). Where his political points are sometimes a bit (or a lot) iffy, I would say he got one of his better cases with this portrayal of the players on the financial markets. I am a complete outsider, but whenever I meet these “golden boys”, I get that Gordon Gekko feel, that convinces me that this is not that far fetched. I think Stone was onto something here and that in terms of zeitgeist in the mid-eighties, this was right on target.

The Gordon Gekko character has become a by-word for an amoral financial shark. He is the image we get when we hear or think of crooks in high finance. In the movie he delivers several speeches outlining his extreme capitalist philosophy, which is a Darwinian survival of fittest where fittest mean cunning, daring and most unscrupulous. His speech at the Teldar general assembly is essentially the political program of the extreme liberal right and a defence of raw capitalism. It is delivered to create excitement, and this is how it is received, but when you look at it from a distance, it is truly scary. Douglas won an Academy Award for this portrayal and that was fully deserved.

As in “Fatal Attraction” we have a flawed hero. In “Wall Street”, the temptation is money rather than sex, but the effect is the same. Bud Fox willingly compromises his principles and it is only when his family is threatened that he gets his moral compass set. As Dan in “Fatal Attraction”, it is too late, Bud Fox must face the consequences, but he gets a chance to fight for the right thing. It is a deep hole to climb out from.

Daryl Hannah is a strange cast. She gets top billing, likely because of her name, but she is almost invisible in the movie. She is merely one of the perks Fox gets for working for Gekko. There is no chemistry or enthusiasm, and I get the sense that they could have picked any second-rate actress for this role and not an A-lister.

On the other hand, I was very excited to see John C. McGinley as Fox colleague at the stockbroking company. Ever since “Office Space” I have loved every role he has played. He is awesome and no less here.

I was also very happy to hear Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place” featured twice in the movie.

“Wall Street” is an iconic eighties movie, but it is more that just a symbol or a political manifest. It is actually a really good movie. Highly recommended. This is also my last 1987 movie. On to 1988.