Parker’s Double Take

Parker Mott reviews Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Boardwalk Empire

The ruthlessly lucrative-minded Gordon Gekko is back in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
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The ruthlessly lucrative-minded Gordon Gekko is back in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan

Director: Oliver Stone Duration: 129 minutes

3 Stars Out of 4

It was 23 years ago when the original Wall Street introduced us to the reptilian Gordon Gekko. Wall Street is a film I loved. Brutally underrated, it told us something about our post-Cold War ambitions.

Now comes along its extensive sequel, Money Never Sleeps, a one-liner title acting more as a tagline than actually describing the essence of the film. Stone should be calling this “The Sleeping Nickel” or “The Penny Pusher” but he wants to avoid camp this time.

Money Never Sleeps is not as aggressive or empowered as the first Wall Street, but Stone, a terrific director, is not stupid. Its patient pacing (some may negate it as slack) illustrates the malaise of modernity as an economic splendor, the stock market, reaches an unfourtunate pitfall.

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is more of an antihero this time. We first see him departing from prison after a seven year sentence—he looks like a boxer shamefully leaving the boxing ring after a tough loss. Gekko says nothing and Stone barely has the obligation to put Gekko in a close-up. One thing we do know for sure: Gekko’s in a new world now, one that requires no old-fashioned mobile phones and that provides “one gold money clip with no money in it.”

In the busy streets of New York, there’s always that aspiring-astute amateur—from Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen, who has a brief cameo here) to Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf). Moore’s house looks upon the city lights, suggesting the motivations of Stone’s protagonists.

By Jake’s side is Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), a writer for a leftist blog, his fiancé, and Gordon’s estranged daughter. Stone, as crafty as he can be, is never shrewd constructing his female characters (Darryl Hannah was a write off in the original and so was Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush in W.). This film is not different and most of the time Winnie is either shedding a tear or throwing television remotes across the room—when she could have easily just clicked the off button.

In a sense it’s telling a familiar narrative, one centered around the depths and intrigue of Gordon Gekko, but Money Never Sleeps has a different bow on the wrapping paper. For most of the picture, it works. Gekko, being the snake that he is, demands our sympathy at first. He makes a speech to several university students, asking “is greed good?” not simply stating greed is good. I wouldn’t say Gekko is a changed man (Stone creates the character so that Gekko would refuse redemption), but the speech juxtaposes a similar talk in the original.

From the first Wall Street, Gekko’s speech was turgid eloquence. Here it’s full of vulnerable assertions and a little rueful too. By the end of his speech, he comically states: “three words: buy my book.”

Stone’s environment is much more downcast than its predecessor because this is about the 2008 financial crisis. Jobs dwindle gradually; proxies and businessman become mercenary, but soon realize it never lasts. Stone suggests this change of economic formula through Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), who provides an important dimension to Money Never Sleeps. He explains that nothing ever lasts anymore and that we are no longer moving forward, but scrambling backwards.

When Jacob asks “are we going down?” Zabel advises: “wrong question, Jake—[the question is] who isn’t?”

Money Never Sleeps is not as provocative and brisk as the first Wall Street because these are different times. Stone uses iris shots and inventive transitions to exemplify the technological advancement over the years.

Money Never Sleeps is put in a modern world, which Stone characterizes well. It’s not about plot—it’s still about the game. Refrain from dismissing Money Never Sleeps as a repeat because it is about a new context. Although greed can never be good, it seems to be legal.

Where Money Never Sleeps falls short is in the ending. The conclusion is insulting and hypocritical. It goes against the rigid belief that the economy never produces justice or benevolence. Stone unfairly asks us what we are to take from Money Never Sleeps in a far too ambiguous sense—its ending doesn’t seem to reflect its ideas.

How it should have ended? It needed to be honest, unjust and disjointed—our questions had to be frayed, not humorously answered. To make Money Never Sleeps truly great it should have been about the immortality of greed, and how everyone has a little Gekko in them.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE

Would you be surprised if I told you Martin Scorsese had directed a pilot about old-fashioned mobsters on vibrant, roaring-twenties sets? I bet you wouldn’t.

HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, though not completely geared under the Scorsese engine (it’s produced by The Sopranos’ Terence Winter), resembles much of the director’s earlier works. It has that stunningly meticulous realism (Mean Streets) and tells a story of a life that is indulgent at first, but, we can assume, will degenerate into something rather nefarious (Goodfellas).

Boardwalk Empire’s pilot is a great start because it’s lively, gripping and true. It seems to walk that dangling thread between Scorsese-ideology and the vigorous and profane energy HBO favours. The show, as of yet, has not proven if it’s a morality tale or show-stopping entertainment. But Scorsese, who is also an executive producer, crafts sets that seem to personify their characters: gleaming, majestic, but on the inside, corrupt, tarnished and ostentatious.

The narrative is messy, extensive and compulsive. Boardwalk Empire’s characters always represent inner realities that are completely different to their external ones. It’s 1920 and the milieu is Atlantic City. Prohibition has become the biggest thing since the Tin Lizzie. Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi) is first seen as a liberal and charismatic political figure. He exalts the essence of Prohibition and women’s rights to an audience of inspired females. They can barely withstand the transcendence of his presence. To them, he’s their diplomatic guardian angel.

Of course, Scorsese (who admired the original draft written by Winter) creates an immediate character transition. Nucky is not who he appears to be—he’s a heavy-smoking, debauch and reprobated man. He’s a major supporter of Prohibition because the illegal production and importation of alcohol is highly profitable. As Nucky says while he shuffles dollar bills in his hands, “They can drown in liquor for all I care. As long as they pay.”

So why is the location the Boardwalk Empire and not New York, Chicago or Little Italy (territory much more familiar to Scorsese)? Because, at the rise of the roaring twenties, Atlantic City was its own speakeasy burg, so when people wanted booze they went there because it was by the water (making it easy for shipments) and there was no hassle. Heck, the government was providing the bottles.

Michael Pitt plays James Darmody, a young recruit of Nucky, who is keen on making a name for himself. Pitt’s got the DiCaprio mannerisms down; he is the aggressively ambitious protagonist who is really the panoramic character exposed to a masterful paradox of the American Dream—being somebody, yes, but through the most unconstitutional ways, nothing democratic. James even teams up with a young Al Capone (played nicely by Stephen Graham), who is not in his prime, but clearly has fire in his blood.

The sets are extravagant: the ones of the boardwalk are monumental and ever-so resplendent, clearly reflecting the town’s relentless financial and industrial power. If anything, Boardwalk Empire is a Gangs of New York redux (due to its sumptuous, turn-of-the-century look), but unlike that film, this is not about the quest for revenge. Boardwalk Empire is a quest for quite the opposite: it is about the human necessity of vanity and how people are more concerned with doing (what they perceive to be) good to ultimately produce bad.

Michael Shannon, known for his terrific scenery-chewing skills in Revolutionary Road and The Runaways, plays the puritanical Agent Nelson Van Alden, who is persuading the credulous Darmody to go undercover and bust Nucky (that scene is strongly reminiscent of the DiCaprio-Sheen-Wahlberg confrontation in The Departed—Wahlberg is also an executive producer here). By the end of the episode, we cannot help but question Darmody’s motivations—Is he a gangster? Is he a cop? Is he innocent?

And that is Scorsese’s purpose, and hopefully Winter’s too—to make the characters of Boardwalk Empire victims of, not just their environments, but their inner conflicts. These are not necessarily malicious people (Scorsese made that clear after Casino), these are people following orders—theirs and others.

By the end of the pilot, Darmody says to Nucky: “you cannot be half-a-gangster.” Nucky loses his esteem and moral integrity, whatever was left of it.

Boardwalk Empire is high on the realism and moderate on the entertainment. It will be interesting to see where Winter takes us and if Marty will be behind that camera again because when he is, as the pilot proves, he can make Boardwalk Empire do more than just work.

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