A squandered opportunity.
WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS is a squandered opportunity to engage an elite collection of actors and timely brand (the real Wall Street and Gordon Gekko) to flesh out for American audiences exactly what transpired in the bowels of Manhattan’s Financial District in the past two years. Not to mention tell a great story in the process.
Mission sooo not accomplished.
Jake Moore (Shia Leboeuf) is a whiz kid investment banker living the dream life. Until, that is, his mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella in one of the film's few strong performances) and firm are destroyed by corporate competitor Churchill Schwartz and its oily helmsman Bretton James (Josh Brolin). Moore vows revenge. Enter Mr. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas of course), older, wiser and panged with regret (cough) after years in the slammer. Gekko is father to Moore's fiancee Winnie (Carey Mulligan) and soon enters an agreement with his son-in-law-to-be: Gekko will help Moore pin down the people responsible for his heartache if Moore will help Gekko reconcile with his daughter.
You can probably make a series of guesses as to how these scenarios will play out, and in all likelihood you're right on all of them. The film's unfortunate predictability and lack of imagination make for an altogether dull two hours. Perhaps what's hardest to digest however is the gross under-utilization of such an acting powerhouse as this cast presents. Shia not only comes across as unconvincing as an investment genius, but his character is such a straight-up boy scout I found his lack of hesitation to repeatedly lie to his fiancée’s face a bit hard to swallow.
>> Read the rest at Upcoming-Movies.com
No comments:
Post a Comment