Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (PG-13)

In “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” money is Caesar and Wall Street is Rome. Conquerors make million dollar deals that would make ordinary people quiver, and do so without the batting of an eyebrow. Friendships are gained, trusts are made, and are swiftly severed. It’s all part of the game.

If money is the game, there is no better player than Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, reprising his role from the 1987’s original “Wall Street.” There is plenty of homage played to this classic greed tale, such as a cameo by Charlie Sheen (who played Bud Fox in the original “Wall Street”), and the infamous cigar smoking that lines Gekko’s cool, nonchalant navigation through the jungle of capitalism.

Gekko, released from jail after serving 8 years for insider trading and a slew of undefined crimes, emerges to find himself immersed in a culture vastly different from the one he left. Cars are now faster, the stakes are now higher, and technology is king. In a humorous jest, a prison guard hands Gekko his “mobile telephone,” a comically large handset popular in the 80’s, replaced today by sleek, small and fast smartphones to which this relic could never compare.

The relic, we quickly see, is not Gekko. While the ways of making money have changed, the game has not, and he quickly steps in line to a kingdom that never left, only one which was waiting for its king to return.

Shia LeBeouf plays a young Jacob Moore, an up-and-coming master broker who is on a quest of his own, seeking to rectify the wrongful death of his boss and mentor, Louis Zabel, played by Frank Lagella, who becomes the victim of the rise and fall of capitalism when his company goes under and 15,000 jobs are lost. The relevancy to today’s recession and unemployment rates are specifically poignant.

Going head to head with billionaires and Wall Street types, Moore is swiftly lured into a game of cat and mouse with Gordon Gekko. Catching Gekko’s attention due to the fact he is engaged to his daughter, he appeals to Moore’s desire to have a father. It may be unclear, to what end Moore appeals to Gekko: a son, to replace the one he lost to drug addiction, or a new game to replace the one of insider trading he went to prison for, what Gekko calls “a victimless crime.”

The movie is set against the not-so-distant history of the major bank bailout that still frequents daily news. However, it is seen not through the eyes of the media, but the eyes of bankers and major players, such as billionaire Bretton James, who have major pull, while also displaying the severity of repercussions should the banks be allowed to fail. “It will be the end of the world,” states Jules Steinhardt, played by Eli Wallach, Wall Street’s unofficial if not accurate soothsayer.

From sweeping tales of greed to the historical context of capitalism, threats of socialism, and big bailouts, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is an epic. The themes are old, but the game is the same, and if Jacob Moore is to find his way through, he may have to play the game as well

– by Mark Ziobro