Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

In this sequel to Wall Street (1987), Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) has been released from prison and is working the speaking circuit when he is approached by Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) an up and coming executive in the finance sector who happens to be engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter. Moore's mentor has committed suicide when his company is deserted by the banks upon hitting financial problems and the wily Gekko is just the man to guide Moore to revenge. Or is he?

'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' is a glossy mess of mumbo jumbo and extraordinarily unsubtle symbolism. Those who work in the finance sector probably lap up the finance-speak but much of it was incomprehensible to me. The actors often speak indistinctly and much of the dialogue involves multiple simultaneous conversations. Nevertheless the basic story of revenge, greed and double-cross is easy enough to follow.

The symbolism includes dominoes toppling over and bubbles floating away in the sky. The film makers must have little confidence in the intelligence of their audience to resort to such obvious images. The film is about thirty minutes too long and stutters through a number of apparent endings until the actual ending which turns out to be pretty silly.

There are some great images of New York for those who like me never tire of that city although even those images proved a problem inducing minor sensations of nausea as they panned across the giant screen at the session we attended.