I can't remember if the first Wall Street was any good. I just remember that everyone talked about it before, during and since. Hell, Gordon Gecko became a household name, books were written about Gecko economics, and everyone at the office kept repeating the "lunch is for wimps" line. The film even spawned a look: The City Slicker.
For all those reasons I went into this with open eyes and lower expectations.
And those low expectations were met.
This film was shallow, unremarkable, and predictable. All through it Pavey and I were whispering to one another things like: "he's going to double-cross him", or "she's going to walk out on him", and sure enough, everything we whispered came true.
There was no-one to like, no-one to side with. It was one city slimeball trying to get one over on another city slimeball. Michael Douglas was a sleazy piece of work in the first Wall Street, and he out-sleazed himself in this one. Even the Winnie Gecko character, the pure-as-driven-snow daughter, was a whiner, and therefore hard to like.
And finally, the soundtrack stunk!
It was David Byrne at his wimpy, country worst. The music just didn't work in a throbbing city context, even one that's been chastened by the financial crimes committed over the past few years.
All in all, this movie will make you hate money-fiddling brokers as much as did Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.
P.S. The missus wants me to say she liked the movie, so there.
No comments:
Post a Comment