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FILM REVIEWS
"Wall Street" Review
By Roger Ebert
The Chicago Sun-Times
December 11, 1987
How much is enough? The kid keeps asking the millionaire raider and trader. How much money
do you want? How much would you be satisfied with? The trader seems to be thinking hard,
but the answer is, he just doesn't know. He's not even sure how to think about the
question. He spends all day trying to make as much money as he possibly can, and he
cheerfully bends and breaks the law to make even more millions, but somehow the concept of
"enough" eludes him. Like all gamblers, he is perhaps not even really interested
in money, but in the action. Money is just the way to keep score.
The millionaire is a predator, a corporate raider, a Wall Street shark. His name is Gordon
Gekko, the name no doubt inspired by the lizard that feeds on insects and sheds its tail
when trapped. Played by Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," he
paces relentlessly behind the desk in his skyscraper office, lighting cigarettes, stabbing
them out, checking stock prices on a bank of computers, barking buy and sell orders into a
speaker phone. In his personal life he has everything he could possibly want - wife,
family, estate, pool, limousine, priceless art objects - and they are all just additional
entries on the scoreboard. He likes to win.
The kid is a broker for a second-tier Wall Street firm. He works the phones, soliciting
new clients, offering second-hand advice, buying and selling and dreaming. "Just once
I'd like to be on that side," he says, fiercely looking at the telephone a client has
just used to stick him with a $7,000 loss. Gekko is his hero. He wants to sell him stock,
get into his circle, be like he is. Every day for 39 days, he calls Gekko's office for an
appointment. On the 40th day, Gekko's birthday, he appears with a box of Havana cigars
from Davidoff's in London, and Gekko grants him an audience.
Maybe Gekko sees something he recognizes. The kid, named Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), comes
from a working-class family. His father (Martin Sheen) is an aircraft mechanic and union
leader. Gekko went to a cheap university himself. Desperate to impress Gekko, young Fox
passes along some inside information he got from his father. Gekko makes some money on the
deal and opens an account with Fox. He also asks him to obtain more insider information,
and to spy on a competitor. Fox protests that he is being asked to do something illegal.
Perhaps "protests" is too strong a word; he "observes."
Gekko knows his man. Fox is so hungry to make a killing, he will do anything. Gekko
promises him perks - big perks - and they arrive on schedule. One of them is a tall, blond
interior designer (Daryl Hannah), who decorates Fox's expensive new high-rise apartment.
The movie's stylistic approach is rigorous: We are never allowed to luxuriate in the
splendor of these new surroundings. The apartment is never quite seen, never relaxed in.
When the girl comes to share Fox's bed, they are seen momentarily, in silhouette. Sex and
possessions are secondary to trading, to the action. Ask any gambler.
Stone's "Wall Street" is a radical critique of the capitalist trading mentality,
and it obviously comes at a time when the financial community is especially vulnerable.
The movie argues that most small investors are dupes, and that the big market killings are
made by men such as Gekko, who swoop in and snap whole companies out from under the noses
of their stockholders. What the Gekkos do is immoral and illegal, but they use a little
litany to excuse themselves: "Nobody gets hurt." "Everybody's doing
it." "There's something in this deal for everybody." "Who knows except
us?"
The movie has a traditional plot structure: The hungry kid is impressed by the successful
older man, seduced by him, betrayed by him, and then tries to turn the tables. The actual
details of the plot are not so important as the changes we see in the characters. Few men
in recent movies have been colder and more ruthless than Gekko, or more convincing. Fox
is, by comparison, a babe in the woods. I would have preferred a young actor who seemed
more rapacious, such as James Spader, who has a supporting role in the movie. If the film
has a flaw, it is that Sheen never seems quite relentless enough to move in Gekko's
circle.
Stone's most impressive achievement in this film is to allow all the financial wheeling
and dealing to seem complicated and convincing, and yet always have it make sense. The
movie can be followed by anybody, because the details of stock manipulation are all
filtered through transparent layers of greed. Most of the time we know what's going on.
All of the time, we know why.
Although Gekko's law-breaking would of course be opposed by most people on Wall Street,
his larger value system would be applauded. The trick is to make his kind of money without
breaking the law. Financiers who can do that, such as Donald Trump, are mentioned as
possible presidential candidates, and in his autobiography Trump states, quite simply,
that money no longer interests him very much. He is more motivated by the challenge of a
deal and by the desire to win. His frankness is refreshing, but the key to reading that
statement is to see that it considers only money, on the one hand, and winning, on the
other. No mention is made about creating goods and services, to manufacturing things, to
investing in a physical plant, to contributing to the infrastructure.
What's intriguing about "Wall Street" - what may cause the most discussion in
the weeks to come - is that the movie's real target isn't Wall Street criminals who break
the law. Stone's target is the value system that places profits and wealth and the Deal
above any other consideration. His film is an attack on an atmosphere of financial
competitiveness so ferocious that ethics are simply irrelevant, and the laws are sort of
like the referee in pro wrestling - part of the show.
Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.
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