Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas, Daryl Hannah, Martin Sheen, Hal Holbrook, Sean Young, John C. McGinley, Terence Stamp, James Spader
Wall Street was meant to be Oliver Stone's cautionary tale about how greed will eventually destroy whatever it touches. Many future Wall Street brokers did not get that memo. Gordon Gekko (Douglas) was idolized instead of reviled. He became a role model for an entire generation of get-rich-quick schemers whose practices would aid in crashing the economy in 2008. In Boiler Room (2000), some of the characters could recite Gekko's dialogue word for word. Stone and Douglas teamed up for the 2010 sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which came closer to communicating Stone's original message more vividly.
Regardless, Stone's Wall Street is an absorbing snapshot of the financial sector run amok. There is the appearance of regulation. The federal government occasionally busts a firm or two because they were so conspicuous with their underhanded practices that an arrest and conviction was like shooting fish in a barrel. But generally, firms are built and its builders enriched by insider training, dubious accounting, and an ability to wreck people's lives in the quest to strengthen the bottom line. If you don't believe me, check out Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). The Enron brass probably took a cue from Gekko.
Wall Street mostly revolves around upstart stockbroker Bud Fox (Sheen). He is from a working-class family, worships Gekko, and dreams of one day becoming part of his inner circle and becoming filthy rich in the process. Bud visits Gekko on his birthday and catches his attention with some inside information about the airline where his father is a union steward. Gekko takes a liking to Bud, especially when the tip turns into a profit. He sees a lot of himself in the hungry Wall Street neophyte. Soon, Bud is trading for big dollars and even bigger stocks. Gekko is in the business of buying failing companies, breaking them up, and selling off the assets for an even bigger payday. It is no surprise when Gekko soon sets his sights on the aforementioned airline, which would be thousands of people, including Bud's father, out of work. Bud asks Gekko why he wants to wreck the airline. "Because it's wreckable," replies Gekko as only he can.
Douglas won a Best Actor Oscar for his role here. It is a well-modulated performance of a character who is mostly snake, but part snake oil salesman as well. He is able to lure naïve protégés like Bud because of the disguise of charm and charisma. Underneath that is a ruthless corporate raider. To him, the market is not as much about the money as it is about the game. His voice trails off in disappointment at a critical juncture and says, "I guess we'll only make $10 million today." Sure, he loves the perks of a private jet, a Hamptons home, and custom-made suits, but he loves the action even more. I'm reminded of Danny DeVito's corporate raider Lawrence Garfield in Other People's Money (1991), in which he said, "This is the best game in the world. You make as much money as you can for as long as you can. Whoever has the most when he dies wins." Gekko likely believes the same thing.
The moral center of the film is Bud's father Carl (Martin Sheen), who sees through Gekko and attempts to warn his son about him. ("He's using you, kid. He's got your prick in his back pocket,") Since Bud is making beaucoup bucks, he is not about to let his father's misgivings stall him, until they suddenly do. Oliver Stone, who co-wrote and directed, knows the lingo and the milieu well. His father worked on Wall Street, which gives Stone the insight needed to make us see what makes the Gekkos and Bud Foxes of the world tick. It also lends weight to the scenes between Martin and Charlie, who are able to handle tricky scenes like a father and son would.
The crucial scene which makes Douglas' performance so successful is the pitch he makes to shareholders of a paper company he wants to buy and subsequently destroy. This is the famous "Greed is good" speech, (although Gekko doesn't exactly say those words). It takes a special type of person to convince people to act against their own best interests. Gekko is one of those people. So are many politicians. Those who watch the news of this year's (and any year's) presidential campaigns can not argue with that.
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