The atmosphere on Wall Street / AP
Almost 23 years after the first one was made, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps starring Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko and Shia LaBeouf as Jake Moore, opened last night and brought in over $7M, taking 1st in the box office for the weekend (so far).
The first movie left off with Mr. Gekko going to jail after Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen) sang like a canary to the judges over Mr. Gekko’s involvement with insider trading. In the movie, it is now 2008 and Gordon Gekko is released from prison and finds himself a little outdated and an outcast. Jake, a hard working kid working at an investment bank doing the daily grind finds out that his company was doing some illegal things and the company falls apart, causing his boss to kill himself.
Jake seeks the assistance of Mr. Gekko, in order to help ‘rekindle’ his relationship with Gordon’s daughter, Winnie (played by Carey Mulligan).
The premise behind the new movie is based on the 2008 financial crash, when the large banks faltered and required bailouts from the government. Though, a lot of the movie was spent sitting in on meetings between the bankers and the FED, it was still a very good movie.
The movie was very good and worth watching, as it puts a lot of things in to perspective. “Greed is Good”, the line that was made famous by Gordon Gekko is still used, but this time he is doing it the “legal way”. The ending leaves the movie open for interpretation so choose which way to believe, as it will make more sense after watching (without me giving it away to you).
