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3 1/2 Stars

Sequels coming 23 years after the original aren’t suppossed to be this good. However Director Oliver Stone’s latest trip to ‘Wall Street’ is his strongest film in over a decade. Working from a script by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiffwith based on characters created by Stone, this intense operatic drama is set against the financial crisis of 2008.

The Pic opens with Michael Douglas’s seminal character Gordon Gekko getting out of prison after serving 8 years for ‘white-collar’ crime. Now a successful author conducting seminars to a younger generation of stock traders, he finds himself an outcast to the corporate elite. Looking to re-establish himself Gekko strikes up a relationship with Shia Labeouf a young professional engaged to the daughter whom abandoned him while inside.

Douglas slips back into the role that won him an OSCAR in 1987, and he looks like a shoo-in for another nomination come this March. Also delivering OSCAR-worthy performances are Josh Brolin as a snake-like corporate raider, and Frank Langhella playing a lifetime ‘broker’ whose time has come and gone. Labeouf is at a career high here, totally believable as a man dealing with an impending financial and emotional crisis. A riveting drama that holds the viewer in it’s grip for nearly it’s entire running time. Greed my not be good any longer but Stone has proven that greedy men make for irresistible stories.

Director: Oliver Stone
Stars: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin