When the sequel opens twenty years have passed, eight of them spent in prison by our hero, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). He emerges a free man, with only a set of keys and an over-sized cell phone to his name. Nobody greets him. For all appearances, he’s a rundown guy, hair unruly and clothes outdated. We can sense his displacement. But more years pass, and we meet Jake (Shia LeBeouf) a young Wall Street hot shot who, unlike his predecessor (Charlie Sheen), has a heart. Jake works for his mentor, Lou (Frank Langella), the head of a Bear Stearns-Lehman Brothers-like financial firm that’s on the verge of collapse. When Jake loses Lou, he will be forced to choose between two other potential mentors, each dangerous in his own way – Gekko and Bretton James (Josh Brolin). Except one of them – Gekko – has a daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), whom Jake plans to marry.
A change comes over Gekko as the movie moves into its third (and fourth and fifth?) act. Now Gekko’s hair is slick and styled, and his custom-made suits add power to his shameless iconic appeal. We know the predator is back, but does Jake? The film’s fast talk flies by us, feeling intelligent and blood-pumpingly engaging, but at some point we ask ourselves “does this all add up?” A masterpiece of confusion – banks, CEOs, tax evasion, money laundering, Federal Reserve – we know they’re all doing something wrong and they’re probably all going down. Sentences like “Laser fusion is the future” or “Babaco Solar is a no-brainer” make my brain-dead head wonder what they’re buying, selling, and investing in. But while you hear the techy-talk and walk the high-speed New York walk, it’s Jake and Winnie’s relationship that humanizes this sharp-shooter film. As with this summer’s Inception, the one thing that anchors this movie is the love story. A film rich with family values and family crisis, the film’s cachet comes from gorgeous cinematography, flawless performance and even the irony of Michael Douglas’s real life. The wizard behind the curtain is director Oliver Stone, who helmed the original Wall Street in 1987. The difference between the two isn’t Gekko’s soul-searching, but the fact that this time we all know what’s coming – The recession we’re still struggling through. Can the biggest crash since the great depression bring down even the great Gordon Gekko? Will you follow this movie’s financial machinations enough to find out? Three tiaras (sidenote: It’s not often I can say this, but I named the character Winifred “Winnie” Gekko, the daughter of Gordon Gekko, when screenwriter Stephen Schiff asked me “I want to give Gekko a daughter. What would her name be? Something that reeks of old money, elegance and class…”)