Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps

I decided to watch the original Wall Street before seeing this film and I was surprisingly disappointed. It had its good moments but seemed long, dated and unrealistic, very different to how I remembered it. This may be because it is more than 20 years old but really good films tend not to feel dated, or at least you accept them as right for the period.

This lowered my expectations for the follow up but I was pleasantly surprised. Though the story line had elements of soap opera in it, the film was much more engaging than the original and, with a few exceptions, quite realistic for a film of its kind. And Michael Douglas was superb, acting his younger cast members off the screen and presenting – at least initially – a new and humbled Gordon Gekko, sobered by his years in jail. The opening scene where he collects his belongings – including a brick size mobile phone – on leaving prison and has no-one to meet him outside, is a masterpiece.

The setting for most of the film is the height of the financial crisis which Gekko, now earning his living as a hired speaker and business guru, has been forecasting for some time. The crisis meetings are portrayed very credibly except for the characterisation of one senior investment banker who seems about 100 years old and totally senile, yet is supposed to exert great influence over his younger colleagues. The early personal focus is on Gekko’s estranged daughter – the ubiquitous British Actress Carey Mulligan – and the attempts of her boyfriend to reconcile her with Gekko. The boyfriend is a successful investment banker whose firm is hit by the crisis and whose CEO throws himself under a train in a devastating but tastefully handled scene.

Eventually father and daughter get together and it turns out that Gekko has stashed away 100 million dollars which together they access in a Swiss bank account. There is a double twist at the end which stretches credibility to some extent, particularly when Gekko converts the 100 million into 1000 million within a few months and has investment bankers pleading to join his fund. But by that time you are hooked on Gekko and, largely due to Douglas’s brilliant performance, disbelief is suspended.

It would be good to think that there could be a Wall Street 3 but that is probably the last thing on Michael Douglas’s mind right now. Any future film from this outstanding actor will be a bonus.