Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
On paper, it's a fucking great idea: updating Oliver Stone's 1987 finance drama Wall Street to show Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, great and sharkish as ever) before and after the financial collapse of 2008. A couple warning bells, though: The movie's really about the much less interesting character of Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a young broker who's engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter Winnie (a blubbery, teary-eyed Carey Mulligan). Moore and Gekko pal up behind weepy Winnie's back to reunite father and daughter--and along the way, Gekko imparts his cutthroat financial wisdom. The family crap is even soggier than it sounds, but Stone and screenwriter Stephen Schiff have crammed more into Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps--too much, probably, for a single movie.
by Ned Lannamann