Review of Wall Street (1987) by Guy G — 22 Feb 2012

[B+/85] A cautionary moralistic tale set in the frighteningly cut-throat capitalist world of stockbrokers and corporate raiders. The film drew from several contemporary calamities of the 1980s, that saw high-powered speculators unmasked for insider trading and other illegal financial activities, but it's also an homage of sorts to the director's father, who apparently toiled his entire life within that professional domain.

Given this, the film feels at times like a privileged peek into a vital, unfathomable Darwinistic game operating behind the pedestrian structures of society (and, it's implied, government), where massive fortunes, the accountings of conscience, and the petty lives of everyday schmucks are transformed into abstract, elusive gambits on the battlefield of the pursuit of wealth. There is almost a fantasy aspect to the proceedings that is fascinating and engrossing, and undoubtedly too accurate for comfort, even if much of the drama seems couched in overly simplistic moralistic paradigms of big guys versus little guys, power versus authenticity, etc.

Beyond the Wall Street trappings, the movie is really an old-fashioned fable concerning a young protagonist's cosmic dilemma between two fathers: one a paragon of wealth, war, and sorcery; another, a kind but seemingly weak guardian of traditional values. It's a Prodigal Son story, with all the themes of temptation, betrayal, dissolution, and redemption arrayed in classic form. Daryl Hannah is lacklustre, as usual, in a wallpaper role; but there is little to nil female presence of consequence here anyway. This is a boy's tale, and Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen are rather excellent in making it work.