Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

There is a thing about great film makers - they really know how to grab you by the gut and take you on a ride. Few film makers have that capability; one such film maker is Oliver Stone, the brain behind classics such as Platoon, JFK, The Doors, Scarface (writer), Midnight Express (writer) and Wall Street (co-writer and director).

After years of giving the mantra "Greed is good", this activist film director strikes back to give us the new mantra "Greed is legal". Yes, that's the new mantra Mr. Stone throws at us this time around when he brings Mr. Gekko "back from the dead".

Wall Street 2 begins where the Wall Street ended; or should I say that the movie is a part of a continuum. If back then, Mr. Gekko was sent to prison for market manipulation and insider trading; this time he is back as a redeemed (?) soul who writes a book questioning his own mantra (Is greed good?). He is out and he predicts, as a true-blue Wall Street conqueror, that this street is gonna collapse and with it also the world! This is the basic premise of this picture (a commentary, rather, on America's prolonged love affair with Capitalism).

Loosely inspired by the collapse of Bear Stearns and the refusal by JP Morgan Chase to bail them out, the beauty of the picture lies in the way Mr. Stone constructs his vision. Laden with the continuous trickling of numbers, the stock markets, the tall-intimidating buildings and streams of faces, the film makes a strong statement of a countless controlled people v/s a few controlling them.

By the extension of KZI (the fictional stand-in for Bear Stearns), the director paints a horrific picture of an entire global financial superpower collapsing. The way Mr. Stone edits the shots of parties and glamor (almost in a surreal and seductive fashion) and then gives us the horrific download of the financial collapse is amazing; the editing plays a huge role.

Also interesting is the way he chooses to film his financial regulators and the financial dictators' meetings behind closed doors is another eye-opener. The increasing tension; the red-tapism and the egos at play have been captured like an insider. The Big Apple, being flashy and colorful from the exterior whilst rotting from the inside is the theme that clearly emerges out of this new corporate epic directed by Oliver Stone.

Performances are easily in alignment with the demands of the script with Shia LeBeouf and his leading lady delivering the goods, while Josh Brolin triumphs as an egoistic and an ever-greedy CEO of the rival financial giant. However, one man that truly defines and epitomizes this picture is Mr. Gekko himself. Michael Douglas arrests you with his graceful and suave physicality and yet screwing you with his cold-blooded Wall Street demeanor. He is every inch a Wall Street-er!

Dialogues are fabulous throughout the picture, especially during Douglas' first official address after being released from the prison.

Oliver Stone creates a wonderful and a highly entertaining picture of one of the most harrowing times faced by the entire world. It's quite ironical that being over-dependent on the U.S led us Indians to get screwed in a way; but also being over-dependent to the U.S in some ways is also entertaining us (great movies!). And it had to be an American film director to make the film on the bleakest chapter in the American financial history.