A sequel is always harder to make than the original, especially when it comes
23 years after Oliver Stone's Oscar winner Wall Street (1987).
Wall Street – Money Never Sleeps (2010) is a second story of
a young man seduced and betrayed by Gordon Gekko, which unfortunately lacks
ambition and drive of the first film. The story begins dramatically with an
investment bank collapse, after which the script slowly sinks into the mire of
a morality tale. An idealistic next generation Gordon Gekko plans to marry the
old man’s estranged daughter, while the old man retains his snakelike ability
to shed old skin. Despite Michael Douglas’ talent and Charlie Sheen’s
cameo appearance, the performances are unconvincing, while events unfold too
slowly to capture the fury of the 2008 financial crisis.
Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, on the other hand, chronicles the
evolution of corruption and fraud on Wall Street with ease. Though spanning
over decades, the film paints a clean picture of events, using a star studded
cast of real financial officers and regulators. Most of the characters are
amusing, but especially entertaining is Frederic Mishkin, who fails to explain
his resignation from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to “revise a
textbook” one month before the crash. The documentary goes on to clarify
the inexplicable concepts of deregulation, the housing bubble, mark to market
accounting, and derivatives. As a result, the relationship between big banks
and regulatory agencies is explained in detail that makes sense to ordinary
people.
Out of the two films about Wall Street, the Inside Job gets more bang
for its buck.
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