Movie Info
Movie Name: Wall Street
Studio: American Entertainment Partners
Genre(s): Drama
Release Date(s): December 11, 1987
MPAA Rating: R
Greed is good
Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) has dreams of fortune and imagines himself as an up-and-coming trader in the world of face pace stocks. His idol Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is also his dream job which he ruthless pursues. When Bud gets insider information on his father’s company, it seems like an in with Gekko…and the money begins to flow! Bud is on his way to the high life, and a friendship with the master might be the key. Unfortunately for Bud, greed is good, and money might trump friendship and someone’s word.
Written and directed by Oliver Stone, Wall Street is a dramatic rags-to-riches thriller. The movie was well received by critics and won an Academy Award for Best Actor (Michael Douglas) while Daryl Hannah received a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress.
I dreamed you were a mermaid…
Wall Street is an ’80s classic. It represents everything about the decade…the greed, the opulence, and the styles. Going back to Wall Street is a fun trip back to childhood and it continues to remain a good drama in the vein of GoodFellas and Boogie Nights.
The reason of the GoodFellas and Boogie Nights comparisons in that they all follow the same format. It represents the rise, the corruption, and the fall of a man. Bud Fox is ambitious and ambitions corrupt. It is a classic morality tale. Is Bud going to good after all of this…who knows, but the path and treachery is very much like a classic Shakespearian play.
The cast is excellent. Charlie Sheen follows up his great performance in Platoon with another great role as the idealistic but ambitious Bud Fox. The star of the movie however is Douglas who drips slime as the egotistical trader with no scruples. Sheen’s father takes the natural role of his father and other actors appearing include Ted McGinley, Terence Stamp, Sean Young, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Daryl Hannah, and James Karen.
I’m too big to fail!
The movie is a product of the ’80s and captures the ’80s in appearance. The high profile New York City scenery is fun and if you pair it with a movie like Ghostbusters, you get a quintessential ’80s view of the city.
Wall Street is a great movie of excess, and it still stands strong next to more modern movies like The Wolf of Wall Street. Oliver Stone was hitting his stride at this point and Wall Street benefits from this in addition to the creation of a great, classic character in Gordon Gekko. Gekko did return years later in the unfortunately rather limp Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010.
