Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

One of the themes of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010) is that time is more precious than money. It makes me wonder, then, why filmmaker Oliver Stone fritters away 133 minutes while creating no suspense whatsoever. Even a motorcycle race between lead characters goes nowhere. Why? Granted, this film is about the 2008 world financial meltdown, so we kinda know how the story goes. Still, Stone could have added subplots with more intensity than a boring love story and a boringer lesson in Macroeconomics 101. Instead, he’s too busy trying to humanize Gordon Gekko, an all-time great villain. Why?

Wall Street

The great thing about “Wall Street” (1987) is you can enjoy it no matter which side you are on in the whole “greed vs. socialism” thing. You can tsk, tsk about the overindulgences of corporate raiders like Gordon Gekko, and feel satisfied when the union boss’ son (Charlie Sheen) learns his lesson in the end. But there’s a reason Michael Douglas won an Oscar playing Gekko. He does one hell of a sales job explaining why “greed is good.” If Gekko had played Darth Vader (his closest movie counterpart), you might have been cheering for him instead of Luke Skywalker.