Wall Street (1987)

To me, this movie is perfection.

i must have seen a different film!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Michael Douglas richly deserved his Academy Award for his memorable role as Gordon Gekko, the king of Wall Street. Charlie Sheen should have been nominated for his performance as Bud Fox, a young inspiring and ambitious trader. Martin Sheen played Bud's father. The cast is first rate with Daryl Hannah, Sean Young, John C. McGinley, Hal Holbrook and others in this Oliver Stone production. The director makes a cameo in there too. The film was done entirely on location in New York City and the twin towers were still at the foot of Manhattan. It's a great story to show for those interested in working in the financial industry about what and what not to do. The film was dedicated to Oliver's father, Louis, who was a stockbroker.

I'm not the best to talk about this movie because i watched only the Darryl scenes: honestly, i don't know today actress with the same soft, dreamy blonde attitude: sure she has a halo from my Swedish friend but all her 80s movies are really good: here she plays an art expert for the tycoon Douglas and falls in love with the yuppie. For sure she lives over the top and doesn't want to lose that, even for love! But i'm sure that if the yuppie would have talked better to her instead of threaten her, she would have stayed!

Maybe watching this back in the day would have made a greater impression, I think Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas is a great performance, and the green Bud Fox by Charlie Sheen fits in very nicely.I don't get the Wall Street world and never will I guess, but I can see the glamor and money and esteem by the peers if you do it well. That is what this is all about, making money and thereby making a name for yourself. In such a competitive world, wouldn't all try to cheat just a little if they had the knowledge to it...This is a good film, has a lot of content I can't understand, but the basics is alright, if Greed is Good, well if you don't get caught up in it or caught by doing something illegal to achieve it, yes then it might be worth it.

If the 1960s were about peace and free love and the 1970s were about a bit less peace, punk and more free love, the 1980s were about power, money and greed. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than in this fantastic encapsulation of the decade by director Oliver Stone.Stone,famous for tackling controversial subjects his way, followed up his Oscar for Platoon the previous year by getting his teeth into the murky world of investment banking in Manhattan. Whilst the film's plot is a fairly standard reworking of the naïve man selling his soul to the devil, it never bores.Michael Douglas (who received an Academy award)appears to enjoy himself hugely as Gordon Gekko, a corporate raider with no moral compass beyond the deal itself. Charlie Sheen plays his metaphorical apprentice, Bud Fox, an ambitious trader looking for the big client who can provide him with his ticket. Fox hustles into Gekko's office, a spectacular lair at the top of a skyscraper, and impresses enough to get his chance. He cements his future by using inside knowledge gained via his father's position at an airline to make Gekko (and himself) more money. The trappings of success follow: a corner office, a girlfriend, an amazing apartment full of art and gadgets. But gradually Gekko's price for success emerges, and Bud has to choose between financial success and family values.Looking back across a quarter of a century Wall Street can appear overblown. Daryl Hannah's big hair, Michael Douglas's big slicked back hair, the striped shirts with white collars, the braces, the big houses, the bigger offices, the money. But this was the 1980s, the decade of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Regan, yuppies in Porches drinking champagne for breakfast. This is a film from the 1980s about the 1980s and it nails the decade's frivolous superficiality against a backdrop of literally life changing business deals.If for nothing else, enjoy this film for Gekko's infamous 'greed is good' speech, whilst remembering that real people inspired this character, amongst them Michael Milken, who practically invented the market in junk bonds. Charged with nearly 100 counts of insider trading in 1989 he cut a plea bargain, went to prison for 2 years and paid a $600m fine. Today his net worth is estimated to be around $2billion.