Wall Street Insider Trading Edition (DVD)

Wall Street is a movie about Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen - Hot Shots, Platoon) a young up-and-coming broker who is lured into illegal conduct by Wall Street legend Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas in his 1988 Best Actor Oscar-winning performance (Solitary Man, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps) who lives, breathes, sleeps and eats for money. Corporate espionage is Fox’s new job for Gekko. Seduced by power, status money and Gekko’s genius, Fox is trapped in a web of his own making. Having a beautiful woman (Daryl Hannah - Kill Bill) doesn’t hurt to go along with all the money, but Fox might end up losing his soul in the process. Will his dad (real life dad Martin Sheen - Firestarter, TV’s The West Wing) be able to talk sense to him in time to save Bud from ruining his life and career or will Bud go down in flames thanks to the morally corrupt financial genius Gekko?

Actor Michael Douglas gives a performance of a life-time in one of his best roles to date. He brings a realism to the 80’s greed for money and power by Wall Street executives years, decades, before bonus scandals and other corruption scarred the reputation of Wall Street forever, not like they didn’t have bad reps around the time of the film with scandals of the time. Douglas is his best as a bad guy here. Real and as down-to-earth as a rich greedy Wall Street executive can get, he is not below ruining lives to line his pockets with even more money than he’ll ever need. Charlie Sheen does a good job as Fox, but is out-foxed (sarcasm intended, sorry had to do it!) by the veteran Douglas. Nice to see Martin Sheen playing a natural role as Charlie’s dad, wait Bud’s dad, a bit of a stretch (sorry I’m feeling sarcastic today) but the senior Sheen was able to pull off his role spectacularly and was the most sympathetic figure in the film. Daryl Hannah is Bud’s girlfriend who was in a relationship of sorts with Gekko and used by him to help control Fox, though she fell for Bud until he proved he can be just as down and dirty as Gordon Gekko. James Spader plays Bud’s friend/lawyer who buys into Bud’s corrupt ways. Overall, the cast is spectacular in both performances and being perfect for their respectable roles.

The story is one that might not appeal to all, certainly it took me awhile to see and like this film despite the all-star cast that I love from top to bottom. Something about greedy rich people using those with far less to line their pockets with cash earned by others just makes me sick. I think seeing the film now it certainly is far more understandable than it was in my youth. Still the story was not very appealing to me, the performances of the actors is what makes this film. I think a lot of other people would enjoy the story more, but I saw enough greed and corruption, even in my youth, that this film hit pretty close to home. As the saying goes, money is the root of all evil. The saying really applies to this movie more than most other films.

Real life father and son Martin and Charlie Sheen play father and son Carl and Bud Fox. A stretch for eahc, but they somehow pulled it off.

Oliver Stone does a great job of directing the film and always manages to pull out award-winning performances from his all-star casts. He seemed to have the tailor-made role for Douglas suit his abilities as an actor like a tailor-made suit that Gekko sported in the movie. Stone pulled out another one of Charlie Sheen’s best roles here as Bud Fox, a young man easily corrupted by normal desires for wealth and power. Stone also does a fantastic job of creating a realistic environment of the times the film represented and the crazy financial world that is Wall Street. Stone’s films have rich stories, which is also the case here even though I complained about the appeal, which is just my personal tastes. Wall Street has a richness of character, which goes to Stone’s strengths as a writer and director.

The 2-Disc set is rather nice, not great. Fox could come up with a better 2^nd disc to give the film a much better selling point with more extras for those who want quantity, but quality is represented here in the extras. I can see why they get hesitant to add more extras when the fans rebel even when they do as in the case of the Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition Blu-ray in which Blu-ray geeks tore apart the release because it did not have the grain they so much desired and one tiny moment Schwarzenegger looked a little waxy from sweat and makeup. Despite the release having a bunch of nice extras Fox did not get any credit for those editions. I can’t complain too much because Wall Street Insider Trading Edition has some nice ones here with the commentary from Oliver Stone (which is always welcome and cherished from me) and three extras on the second disc one of which includes the film along with a trivia track which is pretty cool being both informative (lots of info on stock brokers and real-life Wall Street news) and entertaining (mostly inside info on the actors and director Oliver Stone). I think Fox was going for higher quality in this DVD release, though I would have loved it on Blu-ray, I expect that release to come out packaged with the Wall Street 2 DVD/Blu-ray release and I will gladly review those if/when available. The quality of this DVD release is pretty nice I must say, for DVD it isn’t bad at all and you get the film twice once on each disc with optional commentary on the first and the trivia track and two other extras on the second disc.

Overall, I came to like this film from the cast of good Hannah, Charlie Sheen, to great actors such as Martin Sheen and Oscar Winner Michael Douglas, a great director in Oliver Stone and a compelling story of greed, money, family and power. The performances by the actors alone sold me on this movie, but then you get a great quality Oliver Stone flick that feels richer than Gekko on his best day. Michael Douglas’s performance alone is well worth watching this film even if you have no interest in the subject matter he shows a top-notch performance that seems to come off effortlessly. The man can ACT and those who are too young to know his body of work need to check this out to see one of the best actors Hollywood has ever produced. Wall Street is a great film and I am glad I finally matured enough to appreciate that. For fans of any of the actors or Director Oliver Stone, this is a must-buy!

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