“Greed is Good” seems to be the most best-known line from the 1987 movie, “Wall Street”. The film is about a young stockbroker, Gordon Gekko. His eagerness to make it to the top took him straight to jail when he was involved with the trading of illegal inside information.
“It was not necessary to see the first ‘Wall Street’ to be able to enjoy the second,” Emily Yurick, senior finance and accounting major, said. “There was only one main returning character and it was a different plot. You could understand and enjoy the movie without having seen the first.”
Twenty-three years later, the sequel has finally been completed. Oliver Stone’s latest movie, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”, hit the box office Sept.24. The drama starring, Michael Douglas, and heartthrob, Shia LaBeouf,made a whopping $19 million in its first week, enough to take first place in the box office. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood popped out a movie about the recent chaos that our nation’s economy has fallen into.
“It was a good movie, all the actors did a great job and were perfect for their roles,” Yurick said. “Michael Douglas seemed to easily step back into his role as Gordon Gekko.”
Michael Douglas stars as Gordon Gekko, an infamous inside trader, who was recently released from prison. After 8 years behind bars, Gekko returns to the real world in 2008, just in time to witness the accounting scandals known as Enron and Worldcom.
His daughter, Winnie, is dating Jake Moore, played by Shia Labeouf. Jake crosses paths with Gekko when he attends a lecture given by him on his book about the upcoming financial crisis. Gekko explains to Moore why his daughter Winnie will not speak to him and they make a deal to help each other. In exchange for a more recent photo of Winnie, Gekko offers to help Moore pull together secret information about the Keller Zabel collapse and to bring down an enemy of Moore’s mentor.
“I think it was a really good movie. I love Shia Labeouf, and Michael Douglas was very witty,” Megan Fasano, senior elementary education major, said.
Many moviegoers are calling “Wall Street” one of the year’s best films. According to movie critics, Stone did not surpass his first “Wall Street” movie and the acting was characterized as over the top. The most attractive part about “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is that everyone can relate to it.
