Poor Horatio Alger. What would the 19th-century scribe possibly make of the way we’ve repurposed his rags-to-riches tales?
In the upcoming “The Social Network,” a kind of class resentment reigns at Harvard as a well-off Jewish kid from New York upstages some blue bloods on his way to creating one of the most powerful inventions of the decade: Facebook.
In Oliver Stone’s entertaining if contradictory drama “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” Shia LaBeouf plays Jake Moore. Once a caddie, he parlayed his golf-course relationship with the head of a trading company to nicely lucrative heights.
Jake lives with girlfriend Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan) in a sleek, glass aviary above Manhattan’s bustling streets. It’s a good life — about to experience a setback.
Director Stone and writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff have returned to the financial district just in time for the elevator to plunge in 2008. Images of trading-floor angst and then-there-were-none parades of departing employees carrying cartons take us back to the events that led to the bailouts.
If the name Gekko rings a bell, that’s because those of us around for the merger-happy, martini-swigging, cigar-puffing ’80s remember Gordon Gekko.
Michael Douglas’ slithery character famously said in the original “Wall Street” (1987) “Greed is good.” Good — but not good enough — at greed, Gekko was sent to the penitentiary for insider trading.
As the long-time-coming sequel opens, it’s 2001 and the jailbird is flying the federal coop. Chastised, or so we hope, he appears to be a lonesome man. Even the gangbanger released at the same time has a woman and kids shouting happily.
No one’s there for Gordon. Not his son — he can’t be. Not daughter Winnie. She chose not to be.
Douglas is that rare talent who doesn’t mind being the antihero. It’s a role he excelled at and embraced again and again in the ’80s and ’90s in movies including Stone’s, as well as “Fatal Attraction,” “Falling Down” and “Disclosure.” He also does well playing smart, appealing leading men. Think “The American President.” So his role here teases those two personas. Does he deserve another shot at a life with a loving daughter? Or is he a nesting viper?
“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is a family and cultural drama about good and ill. Love of money and the power that comes from having it (or having your way with other people’s wealth) collide with but also fuel more noble aspirations. Jake wants to fund a cutting- edge green-energy company. Winnie is founder of a progressive website.
Mulligan, who proved with her fine debut, “An Education,” that she is capable of breathing great depth into a well-conceived character, isn’t as vivid here.
Just how far Winnie has turned her back on her father and his ill-gotten gains is a matter for Freud. Ditto Jake’s relationship to his Realtor mom, played with wheeling, dealing, wheedling desperation by Susan Sarandon.
Given the demographics of Wall Street, this is a tale of men and money.
Frank Langella is sympathetic as an old-school money man and Jake’s mentor Louis Zabel.
As Jules Steinhardt, emeritus of a rival investment firm, Eli Wallach sits in a boardroom as Zabel’s company buckles. He looks like a wee and wise demon. Josh Brolin portrays his minion and protege, Bretton James.
Will the cultured shark Bretton become Jake’s new mentor? Will Gordon and Jake continue their dangerous quid pro quo behind Winnie’s back?
There are all manner of strategic alliances forged in “Money Never Sleeps.” So many Fausts. So many ethically dodgy bargains to be made. So many hells.
Yet the most bedeviling bargain of all may be the one director Stone makes at the end of the movie.
Earlier, Gekko tells Jake with a glint in his eye that our affection for triumphal money tales comes because “we love a good bedtime story.”
But the story of Jake, Winnie and Gordon makes us wonder if there is any other bedtime story so lulling, so disarming, as moviedom’s falsely wrought “happily ever after.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
“wall street: money never sleeps”
PG-13 for brief strong language and thematic elements. 2 hours, 13 minutes. Directed by Oliver Stone; written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff; based on characters created by Stanley Weiser and Stone; photography by Rodrigo Prieto; starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, Eli Wallach, Susan Sarandon and Frank Langella. Opens today at area theaters.
