Two-film Saturday again. I popped over to the Cineworld in Edinburgh to chill out and forget the world for a few hours. First up on today’s list:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
“Why don’t you start calling me Gordon?”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Young upstart financier finds himself engaged in corporate corruption, and engaged to Gordon Gekko’s daughter.
Oliver Stone returns, bringing the iconic character of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) back for a second airing some 23 years after the original. Wall Street was, and still is, an iconic piece of film-making, exposing all that was wrong with the financial world at that time. This sequel attempts to do the same, focussing on events of the last couple of years.
The films kicks off with Gekko being released from prison while his estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is shacked up with a fledgling financier, Jake Moore (charisma vacuum Shia LaBeouf). The bank Jake works for starts to crumble, his mentor and boss Louis (superbly played by Frank Langella) tops himself and Jake finds himself “teaming up” with Gekko in a bid to find out what happened to start the whole mess.
LaBeouf is the odd one out in this film as he’s capable, but just not that great. Given his past roster has included being eye candy for girls in the awful fourth Indiana Jones film, and the teen-kid from both Transformers movies it does surprise me to see him in a “serious” role. He’s OK as far as it goes, but just doesn’t really carry it off that well.
Douglas is, of course, excellent. Slimey, sleezy… and you never quite know if he’s being genuine which does lend itself well to the plot. Langella, as I mentioned, was superb – probably the best actor in the film.
It’s a tad under two hours long, but manages not to flag right the way through and the story carries on right until the very end with little “fluff” hanging off the plot. Having said that, there are few major surprises as we go through other than the very end which is – in honesty – a little weak.
Perhaps not as powerful a film a the original, and mainly as we are now as a public somewhat more informed of what happens in the financial world. After the revelation that was Gekko’s first appearance we have discovered that sharks like that aren’t just movie characters and villains in books. On the flip side, it makes things all the more believable.
The reviews I heard on the radio yesterday weren’t all that favourable, but I enjoyed it. In fact, I think I’m going to try and find a copy of the original to watch. It’s been a long time and I’d like to compare them.
“Unskilled, my arse!”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Company pays peanuts to women, they go on strike, **** hits fan, world is changed.
Based on the real events of 1968, Made in Dagenham follows the story of a couple of hundred female workers who downed tools and forced first the world’s largest motor manufacturer, and then the British government to change the law relating to sexual equality.
The film begins with the gears already in motion, the women threatening to turn off their sewing machines unless they are given a better pay grade. On their side is foreman Albert (Bob Hoskins) and he drafts Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) in as a right-hand-woman. They also allegedly have the support of the union, characterised by the slothful Monty Taylor (Kenneth Cranham).
Meetings go from bad to worse, and the women walk out causing problems further down the production line as the new “Escort” has no seats to fit into it. As the situation blows out of proportion, men are laid off, factories close and Ford execs are shipped to the UK to try and deal with both the workers and our government.
Top two cast members for me have to be Richard Schiff (Toby from TV’s The West Wing, looking surprisingly young without a beard) as one of the execs, and Miranda Richardson as then First Secretary of State  Barbara Castle. She really does bossy and shouty very well, and I confess I can’t see her without thinking of her as the Queen in Blackadder II.
The story twists and turns with both high and low moments. The women’s demands increase from “a bit more cash” to “equal pay” back in the day when women were routinely paid a fraction of the amount that men were for the same work. Council estate hardship is compared to posh house luxury as Rita befriends the wife of one of the factory bosses (played by a damn hot Rosamund Pike), giving another facet to the story as women’s domestic suffering is also highlighted.
There’s a fair bit going on here and on the whole it’s played in a lighthearted way, but it’s a fantastic story boiled down to a little over ninety minutes. How close it is to the actual events is down to the historians to tell me, but it’s a very entertaining dramatisation and I’d highly recommend it. Another victory for British cinema.
Related articles
- Review: ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ (sfgate.com)
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (boston.com)
- Movie Review of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (businesspundit.com)
- Movie Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (carefuleugene.blogspot.com)
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (rheaven.blogspot.com)
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – review (guardian.co.uk)