...Money Never Sleeps

I recently watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which is actually Wall Street 2. A continuation directly following when Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is released from Prison from his conviction on Insider Trading among other things. His only daughter (and only living offspring) hates him and wont give him the light of day. However the man she is engaged to, Jacob, (Shia LeBouf) is also a Wall Street player, and better yet, he's pretty good at it. Jacob and Gekko "trade" eachother, Jacob attempts to re-unite him with his daughter, and Gekko gives advice on how to further his career. The firm Jake works for just went under and worst off, he squandered his recent 1.4 Million Dollar Bonus. He eventually seeks out the man who destroyed the company he worked for, the CEO of another firm Bretton James (Josh Brolin), and looks for revenge while working for the new company. Jacob attempts to do all this while trying to secure 100million for an alternative fuel company he has nested a good deal of his nest egg in. Everybody wants something, corporate executives, family members, but what exactly does Gordon Gekko want? Does he want to reunite with his daughter or does he secretly yearn to be back on top?




My Take: Overall I thought this was an excellent movie. Anytime Oliver Stone does a movie, expect it to be good. This is a continuation of Wall Street, but you don't have to watch the first one to understand the second. It has good twists, although if you really know Gordon Gekko, there's not too many surprises, but they are presented in an excellent manner.
 The Pros: The cinemetography was really good. Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin and of course Shia LeBouf are great in their roles. It definitely gives insight about the state of the economy and what happened in 2009. The soundtrack is great and mostly consists of david byrne/brian eno songs when they collaborated in 2008, but it fits really well.
 The Cons: I like movies, so I'm a critic, and even though there may be more cons than pros, it is still an excellent film. That being said, I feel like the ending was very Hollywood, almost like what everyone was rooting for, which doesn't seem to fit into a "stone" movie, but I still enjoyed it. The characters at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury were fictional, so if you knew who the actual players are/were it can be confusing, but I think stone made it that way because the story itself is..well..fiction. There were a few minor plot errors, like a few things didn't add up, but all in all nothing to get in a twist about.

 It's a great film, I suggest you watch it, you might actually learn something.