Customer Reviews

Wall Street (Insider Trading Edition)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

2 Disc Set - Insider Trading Edition, released September 7, 2010

Wallstreet was made in 1987 by writer and director Oliver Stone and starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Darryl Hannah, and John C. McGinley. A young stockbroker after months of persistence finally bags the big fish, Gordon Gekko, a man whose presence and lifestyle he idolizes. He shuns his blue collar background in pursuit of greed and impatiently engages in illegal insider trading.

I first watched this movie after a book called "Now Showing" claimed it to be one of the best 25 movies....ever, I guess. I must say, all in all, it was a good movie. I actually really liked Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen's work in it and I believed their relationship. The pull of an actual father and son relationship really added to the authenticity of the roles. I finally got to see Michael Douglas just the way I like him -- being a bad guy, someone getting the best of him, and not seducing women.

Michael Douglas plays a big Wallstreet player who has money falling out of his eyeballs and is idolized by Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox. Fox is taught to bend and eventually break the rules to get ahead and get that cold hard cash. This movie is all about greed. Douglas' character likes to buy out the majority of shares in a company and then liquidate it getting away with a quick buck. When Douglas gets going into a lengthy monologue, he oozes confidence which is amazing considering the pressure he was under. Bud Fox grows a conscience when he sells out his father's company to this same fate and decides to fight against it ruining everything he's worked for. This was one of those roles that really made Charlie Sheen stand out and become a celebrity in his own right and brought the extra challenges of that responsibility with it.

There is an appearance by Darryl Hannah as random home decorating girlfriend who is very comfortable in her way of living and leaves Fox the first time it gets tough. I thought it would be more dramatic and more of a point of her being in the movie, but there really isn't and it ended up being a waste of screen time and just one more thing for him to lose on his fall from grace. She is a symbol of the rewards that can be earned by a fast way of living stepping on others and her substance is very shallow. Again I really loved seeing someone get the best of Michael Douglas, even if they couldn't get away scot-free and had to face the music. Shows the value of time, hard work, and morals over getting rich quick with some family values thrown in too.

Probably an undervalued asset to this film is one of my favorites, John C. McGinley whom you'll remember as one of the Bob's from Office Space and his role of Dr. Cox on Scrubs. Always there to heckle and mock his good friend and has some of the best one-liners in the movie. Actually three of the main five lines people quote from this movie can all be attributed to this character he developed.

This is especially a great movie for men and/or people who love business and stocks. This is one of my husband's all-time favorites and many men can quote it readily.

DVD Extras:

First, there is a new commentary by director, Oliver Stone. He is a precise fellow! Stories are told of how filming is going on and he isn't even looking through the camera, he is following along word for word in the script to make sure his actors don't miss a moment of his dialogue. Before Michael Douglas, Stone considered Warren Beatty and Richard Gere for the role of Gordon Gekko which both declined when the script was in an earlier form. Apparently Gere still wonders where his career would have gone if he had gotten the script that Michael Douglas got to shoot. Douglas had a heck of a time with the lines. There was so much to his monologues and dialogue and much was shot in long takes. When he finally put in the time and memorized his part better, he was able to put in the performance that was needed. The commentary reveals more behind-the-scenes information as well as Stone's apparently neurotic tendencies. So many times after a line is said, he commented on how so-and-so of some magazine or whatever complained about THAT line but why he justified it being important to the script. If he really was that confident behind each one, he probably wouldn't need to expain, right? He had a LOT of issues working with Darryl Hannah and in retrospect wouldn't have cast her in the role if he could do it over again.

On Disc 2, you can watch the entire film with a Trivia Track that pops up helpful facts like when it's Gekko's birthday that he is a Taurus and other facts that are actually interesting about the making of the film and New York and the stock exchange in general.

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is a very short few minute conversation with the main actors in the new film: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Josh Brolin about their characters and new situations. "Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman" talks about a generation of men who took up "Wall Street" as something to be quoted and idolized Gekko, whom was intended to be a villain but was a hero to these young, hungry executives.

So really when it boils down to it, this version is just to make a few bucks with the new movie coming out and does not provide much that the 20th anniversary edition didn't out-do.

... on the 10-year-old release. I have the word of my local video-nook manager, and his opinion is supported by most of the reviewers. I rented, therefore, the older DVD, which I got to keep longer for the same rental fee. Here's my review based on that edition:

Yes, Little Pig, the Big Bad Wolf Does Eat Pork!
The Big Bad Wolf, in this fictional account of ruthless criminal insider trading on Wall Street, is Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). The Little Pig is a young financial nobody named Charlie Fox (Charlie Sheen), who uses a lot of chutzpah and an accidental tip from his father to hook up with Gekko, whom he aspires to emulate. The father (Martin Sheen) is that rarity in modern America, an honest man who'd rather work productively than get rich quick. The year is 1985, Reagan is President, Greed is both patriotic and Divinely approved, and the stock market is bullish. 2% of Americans own 50% of all wealth, with two-thirds of that wealth inherited. Money, according to Gekko, is not 'made' but merely transferred to those who have the 'stuff' he has, the same 'stuff' he professes to see in young Fox. He will, of course, betray his naive protege when and if ....

It's the superb acting of Douglas and Sheen, and the taut directing of Oliver Stone, that make this film hugely successful as drama. Whether it fairly represents the ethical morass of high finance in America and the deplorable failure of American ideals, or rather unfairly caricatures the wizards of Wall Street who revitalized American business, has been a point of controversy ever since the film first appeared. Critics have derided Oliver Stone as a lefty extremist pursuing an anti-capitalist agenda. There ough to be a "viewers' discretion" warning on this film, I think; if all you know about the stock market is what you hear on TV and radio talk shows, you really aren't qualified to judge it except as entertainment. And believe me, it is entertaining.

Some of the people involved in making the film have asserted that Gekko's character was based on the real-life figure of Michael Milken, the Junk Bond KIng, who was convicted of securities fraud as a result of an investigation of insider trading in 1989. Other candidates for the prototype of Gekko include the disgraced Ivan Boesky, who delivered a famous speech extolling Greed at UC Berkeley in 1986 and who lived by that ideal to the hilt. It happens that I knew Michael Milken personally for a while; he was the close kin of an in-law of my wife. His family and my wife's family had been going to each other's Bar Mitzvahs for decades. Michael Milken was formidably quick-minded and cool-headed about greed, but he was neither as handsome nor as steely-blue menacing as Gekko. As a study of financial concupiscence, however, Gekko could well represent Milken.

And now? Gordon Gekko has remained an iconic figure, such a plausible portrayal of the archetypal Wall Streeter that many people think the film was based on true-life events. But here's the irony of political polarization in the USA: the same people who rave against Wall Street, who thoroughly believe that every broker and trader is another Gordon Gekko, are also the people who denounce Barack Obama's proposed regulations of banks and stock markets! and whose 'faith' in God-given free-market capitalism blindfolds them to the odious truth of Gordon Gekko's credo of selfishness.

Although I had seen Wall Street when it came out and several times since then, I wanted to have the original movie to go with the sequel when it comes out in DVD. I am a Michael Douglas fan but not a Charlie Sheen fan...however, both did a fantastic job in portraying their characters. Martin Sheen didn't do a bad job either. Some reviewers commented on poor visual quality of the film which didn't bother me as much as it seemed to bother them. Looking forward to seeing the sequel and hope Michael Douglas has many more years to enjoy his family and friends in addition to giving great performances playing a wide variety of characters.

I used it for extra credit for a University class. The original movie, very good and price was right.

Good movie, good quality DVD, it is an older version so a little fuzzy but good movie.

I enjoyed Michael Douglas in the first Wallstreet movie I'm looking forward to seeing Money Never Sleeps too.

Ordered the movie so that I could watch it before going to the new Wall Street film. Excellent service from the vendor as it came within days in perfect condition. Movie was great - background provided on film was also excellent.

Stone has made a sequel to his modern classic film. Before watching the new one, I wanted to remind myself of the old one.
It is as fresh as ever. Gordon Gekko is a treasure trove of wise statements on the nature of capitalism. His speech to the shareholder assembly where he attacks the thieving management is brilliant and I never heard a better version of combining satire and serious analysis.
We all know the famous quote `Greed is good', but there is much more in it. I have never heard, so far, any voice that claimed that Gekko is not speaking plain, if self-serving truth. He is the personified damnation of a whole `profession': the locust in human shape. While nobody in his right mind will deny that the financial sector as a whole has an important part to play in modern society, it is equally obvious that Gekko's special branch of the financial industry is entirely destructive. It does not contribute, it is not after `win-win' situations, and it is pure robbery and warfare. Its philosophy is solidly based on zero sums: what we gain is your loss. Be a man and live with it!

The usual argument in defense of these predators is that they play a sanitary role in keeping economic evolution healthy, in the way lions keep antelope herds fit and healthy. Of course there is a grain of truth in that, one can't deny that investment bankers are able to scare the living daylight out of thieving managements. But more often than doing good, these two bunches of criminals will gang up and siphon the juice out of honest shareholders and the work force. Whatever happened to the sane if illusionary concept of stakeholder interest? At about the time of Wall Street, in the best Reagan years, it got totally bowled out of the arena by a deceptive version of shareholder interest, whereby the robber barons assume the speaker role for all shareholders, the majority of whom is not able to follow the process and gets shortchanged.

Of course in comparison to their successors in the 3rd millennium, good old Gekko's world during the Reagan years was nearly idyllic.

(this review refers only to the film, not to this specific DVD)

This movie is an eyeopener to what may really occur behind those hallowed walls of the financial giants in Wall Street, Charlie Sheen plays a masterful award winning part in this movie which will be enjoyed by most who view it

I enjoyed this movie and the quality of the DVD was excellent. There was no stopping betweenframes which is very aggravating with a DVD and happens more often then one wants. I would order again.