Dancing Hotdogs

By Eddy

Gleaned from the pages of the Wall Street Journal as well as likely the gossip columns and “real truth” website, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps attempts to open our eyes to the greed and corruption that led to our current economic situation.  Of course, much of the film is certainly slanted to villanize the stock brokers, firms and even the U.S. Government that leveraged heavily on insurance and home values that eventually collapsed the market, I found myself feeling like I have already seen this movie play out on the small screen.

Current T.V. and news already spins on a 24hr cycle and the ubiquitous nature of the internet no longer leaves anything to the imagination.   The first Wall Street opened our eyes to a world of deal making, trading and materialistic values that essentially symbolized the entire decade weather you were on Wall St. or not. We were given a view into a world that was not yet known.   You felt as if you were getting a view of Sharks in their natural habitat.  Fast forward a couple of decades,  when I see Shia LaBeouf open an envelope to discover a $1.4 million dollar bonus check, I don’t find myself outraged, or envious I just see one more indication of how messed up things are in the system.   We have to be reaching the limit on stories of how rich people can do whatever they want and basically get away with it, whether they are bailed out by their own money or by the governments money (I mean ours).

Here is how the movie goes. Around 2008, a young and talented broker (Shia LaBeouf) is in love with Carey Mulligan, Gordon Gekko’s estranged daughter.  Shia’s firm is destroyed by super Broker Josh Brolin, basically the new Gordon Gekko, and Shia makes it is goal to get revenge on him.   Gordon himself has been released from prison, wrote a book and is doing speaking engagements on how he was basically right and Greed has become good.  Shia reaches out to Gordon to get to know him and also have him help exact his revenge.  Of course, when it comes to Gordon Gekko nothing is for free.  There are a number of twists and turns, fortunes are won and lost. In addition, the Economy turns into the mire that it is currently in, the fictional Bear Sterns (Shia’s firm) dies and the fictional Goldman Sachs gets saved.  Just as it sounds, it is all a big jumbling mess, albeit one that kept me engaged throughout the movie. The acting is well done; with the exception that I don’t believe that Michael Douglas can actually shed a tear.  Oh he definitely tries to do it, but it honestly comes out like the initial scene of Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller. I found myself rooting for him to squeeze out a tear.  Come on Mike! Close your eye a little harder! Maybe if you eye are red enough we can pretend you are crying.