Wall Street (1987)

As Bud Fox in Wall Street, Charlie Sheen knows only one thing, he does not want the life his blue collar father and real life father Martin Sheen has. He's a child of the Eighties and wants to make money fast and live the good life.

Inpatient with working in a brokerage house where he's barely breaking even paying for his yuppie lifestyle in Manhattan, Sheen wants to swim with the big fish. So he looks to ingratiate himself with the biggest fish of all, speculator Gordon Gekko.

For Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko has been the career role of his life, netting him the Best Actor Oscar for 1987 that eluded his father Kirk in three tries. Douglas is at once, charming, egocentric, shrewd, and ruthless. When he talked about his City College background and his father's background which seems remarkably similar to Sheen's it reminded me of Fredric March from Executive Suite. He also had a night school diploma, but rose to the top of his company through hard work and being completely ruthless.

When Sheen brings him information about the airline that his father works maintenance for, Douglas makes a bundle and brings Sheen into his circle. But he's playing him like a piccolo as we soon find out.

Darryl Hannah has a nice role as the trophy woman Douglas fixes for Sheen, but the performance I like is that of Terrence Stamp as the British tycoon who has a no holds barred rivalry with Douglas. He ultimately proves to be the key to the solution to the problem of the speculating wolf of Wall Street.

Oliver Stone supplies us with a not to flattering look at the capitalist system. It should give one pause for reflection. Just imagine what it was like before the New Deal brought in the Securities and Exchange Commission and it was completely unregulated.

It was the stuff the Stock Market Crash was made of. Though the thought of Gordon Gekko selling apples on the street is a pleasing one.

Fmovies: I have seen this movie dozens of times. It is a must see for any capitalist pig. Gordon Gekko remains one of the great movie villains, evil and ruthless to the core. You will love the music by Stewart Copland and Oliver Stone's direction and co-writing of a great screenplay. I went to this film expecting to hate it and loved it. This film will remind you of when Oliver Stone made REAL films. Its also a perfect time capsule for what 1980's America was like.

I did think that this movie was pretty good. I was quite excited when I went into this movie as I was aware of the mostly positive reviews that it had received over the last two decades. I must say that I do not believe this film quite lives up to the hype and all the positive things that I had heard about it.

The performances of Douglas and the Sheens are very great, but again, I'm not sure as they were as mind blowing as all the hype leads one to believe.

The plot was a bit ho-hum for me. It is a good story to see someone who is young and hungry but at the bottom of the barrel rise through the ranks to become a sensation, but for me the way that it was carried out in "Wall Street" could be a bore at times. If you compare this situation to Ray Liotta's character in "Goodfellas" I think you will really see how this could have been better accomplished.

I don't mean to be too harsh with this movie because as I said with my first sentence, I did like it, I just don't think it is quite as good as one might think it to be.

Wall Street fmovies. First of all, it's amazing now to see how young, baby-faced and gauche Charlie Sheen looks from this distance in time, particularly when he's trying to hit on Daryl Hannah.

In today's dumbed down movie world, Gordon Gekko could have been scripted and played exactly the same except for one thing: you'd never see the scene when he suddenly stops to admire the ocean at dawn. Fortunately Michael Douglas clearly added his own dimensions to the character whom, if left to Stone, would have been a cardboard money-grabber. As far as Stone is concerned Gekko wants money for its own sake, but Michael Douglas manages to evince a man who revels in the power and influence that money gets him. Stone's dialogue actually undercuts this perception on occasion, as when Bud Fox yells at Gekko, "How many yachts can you sail!?", and when Gekko, enticing Fox by outlining how rich he could be, says, "Rich enough to have your own jet" - as if owning a jet wasn't the minimum accoutrement you'd expect from the least successful company director or minor pop star. Other infelicities in the script include the moment when Stone wanted to signal that Bud Fox has reached the peak of success and found it empty: following the montage of the condo purchase and decoration, the perfect meal for two, culminating in making love to Daryl Hannah, Stone has Fox standing on his balcony, and apropos of nothing at all, he just says, "Who am I?" It has to be said that Sheen wasn't really up to the task of delivering this atrocious line.

I've rarely seen a film in which the female lead was so comprehensively abandoned by the director. Stone clearly wanted to focus all his attention on Sheen and crucially on Douglas, leaving Hannah floundering and unable to clearly express just how much into Bud Fox her character is at any one time. At the final break-up you almost hear Stone's sigh of relief at being able to get rid of the irrelevant female (probably forced on him by the studio) and concentrate on the man's world of stockbroking.

I seem to be finding a lot of flaws in what is basically a most compelling and watchable film. Despite the complex jargon-riddled technicalities of the subject matter, the movie's plot grabs hold of the viewer from the first scene and never lets go. Of course Douglas dominates most of the movie, until Fox sr. (Sheen sr.) throws the spanner in the works of his son's airline deal. Thank heavens Charlie Sheen took the unbelievably courageous decision to have his own father (instead of Jack Lemmon) play his character's father because the two of them perform an absolute barnstormer of a scene in which every word, inflexion and facial expression is repleat with absolute truth; and it's all the more poignant considering Charlie Sheen's own personal difficulties which faced him in later years, and the well-publicised ups and downs of his relationship with Martin as a result. Had those troubled times preceded this movie, it's hard to imagine the performances could have been any different - that's how good they are.

Fantastic character support comes from Hal Holbrook, the always reliable Saul Rubinek and John C. McGinley (who does not seem to have changed at all in the intervening years!), a young James Spader and the magisterial Terence Stamp who understands the unutterable menace with which it is possible to lace the single word "Mate".

I mainly purchased the DVD, because of two reasons: Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. I'm quite an admirer of both actors. I have virtually no knowledge about the stock market, or about stocks themselves. Those who are in the market or have vast knowledge about stocks will probably enjoy the film much more. However, I still enjoyed the film. When a movie's really good, it doesn't matter whether or not the audience member is interested in the topic. Besides, the film boils down to basic universal themes, like selling your soul to the devil and money being the root of all evil.

The characters are interesting and richly developed, with the exception of Darryl Hannah's underwritten character. I can see why she didn't like playing that role. Douglas is always a joy to watch, and makes a suave yet slimy villain. I wouldn't necessarily say he deserved an Oscar, but he did a fine job nonetheless. So did Charlie Sheen, who is actually the star of the film despite the fact that most people remember "Wall Street" for Douglas as Gordon Gecko. Sheen gives a fine multi-dimensional performance. I love the scenes between him and his father Martin Sheen, who plays his father in the film. Oliver Stone made a great choice casting the father-and-son team, since the tension in their scenes feels very authentic.

There are some predictable plot turns and character arcs, but altogether Stone keeps the excitement going. I like how the climactic scene between Douglas and Sheen is shot without cuts, with the camera moving from person to person, keeping the tension going. If I knew at least an inkling about the stock market, I wouldn't be completely lost during certain scenes, but what can you do? I still think it's a fine film with solid performances.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

Wall Street could have fit in very nicely in the theatres today. The bull market of the late 80's can be compared to the insane dot.com market of the late 90's, the same mistakes made on Wall Street repeated themselves again. Hal Holbrook's character is the voice of reason in Wall Street, telling Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) to stick to the basics, and not get carried away with going for the easy buck. Fox is entranced by dynamo Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), whose specialty is taking over and "wrecking" companies, "because they're wreckable". Gekko takes Fox in as his protege, teaching him the ropes and showing him the realities of greed. Fox becomes corrupted, and despite the sobering influence of his union man dad (Martin Sheen) gets ensnared in Gekko's web. Great performances all around, Douglas was deserving of the Oscar, Charlie Sheen was very good in his role as well. There are terrific supporting roles in this movie; Martin Sheen, Holbrook, Terence Stamp and Oliver Stone's favourite character actor, John C. McGinley. For all of Stone's later failed movies, Wall Street hits the nail on the head, and above all entertains the audience. It's hard to see how the same man directed trash like Natural Born Killers afterwards.