Everyone knows the line "Green is good" spoken by Micheal Douglas as the infamous Gordon Gecko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. It has become an immortal piece of movie dialogue. Stone meant for the film to be a scathing rebuke of the excess of the 1980's but the film had a different legacy. Stone, Douglas and star Charlie Sheen can't count the amount of men who have told them that the film inspired them to become stock brokers and investment bankers. That Gecko's pursuit of wealth be came there mission and dream. In doing so many overlooked the central theme of the film; forsaking hard work and slow steady growth for easy money leads to disaster.
The film also has another theme; two father figures fighting for the soul of their son. Charlie Sheen plays Bud Fox a junior stock broker who is desperate to make it big. Martin Sheen plays his father, a blue collar union man who represents honesty and hard work. Gordon Gecko represents a second father who has the money, power and success. We watch as Bud struggles under the influence of these two men to find his moral center.
The film is not a scathing rebuke of capitalism. Just the excess brought on by Gecko's unrestrained free-market philosophy of creative destruction. At one point Bud asks "How much is enough?" the same question was asked of the Jack Nicholson character in The Departed and the Denzel Washington character in American Gangster. For this type of man there is never enough. It is not about the money and the things it can by. It is about power, being a "master of the universe", control and being better than everyone.
George Bernard Shaw once said "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress therefore is dependent on unreasonable people."
This type of personality is great for getting things done on the way up, but when they finally crash they bring everything down with them.
The movie belongs to Micheal Douglas, who won the Best Acting Oscar for his performance, and to Charlie Sheen, but there are good moments by the supporting cast. the films only flaw was casting the vapid Darryl Hannah as Darien Taylor. an interior decorator and "trophy" blond who falls for Bud.
The movie also looks dated now, especially the "state of the art" technology from 1987.
George Bernard Shaw once said "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress therefore is dependent on unreasonable people."
This type of personality is great for getting things done on the way up, but when they finally crash they bring everything down with them.
The movie belongs to Micheal Douglas, who won the Best Acting Oscar for his performance, and to Charlie Sheen, but there are good moments by the supporting cast. the films only flaw was casting the vapid Darryl Hannah as Darien Taylor. an interior decorator and "trophy" blond who falls for Bud.
The movie also looks dated now, especially the "state of the art" technology from 1987.
I am looking forward to watching Stone's sequel Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps and seeing how it holds up against the original.
At the Movie House rating ***1/2 stars
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