On the Wall Street of the 1980s, Bud Fox is a stockbroker full of ambition, doing whatever he can to make his way to the top. Admiring the power of the unsparing corporate raider Gordon Gekko, Fox entices Gekko into mentoring him by providing insider trading.
Watching Oliver Stone's Wall Street is about as wordy and dreary as reading the financial papers accounts of the rise and fall of an Ivan Boesky-type arbitrageur.
Some of the 1980s-era details may seem a bit dated, and the movie's attitude toward women is slightly despicable, but the overall story arc, echoing the "Faust" tale, is timeless.
In Wall Street...you will see the evil, capitalistic impulses of man. Towards the end, you will see the self-righteous impulses of liberal finger-waggers. It's hard to tell which is worse.
Like the rest of Stone's oeuvre, it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But his filmmaking style is like heavy metal: When he hits the right chords, nobody plays with as much power or brash energy.
Wall Street isn't a movie to make one think. It simply confirms what we all know we should think, while giving us a tantalizing, Sidney Sheldon-like peek into the boardrooms and bedrooms of the rich and powerful.
Washington Post
January 01, 2000
With its posturing politics and cardboard characterizations, Wall Street is not up to [Oliver Stone's] past standards.
For a motion picture that, at the time of shooting, was intended to be relatively hip and cutting-edge, it is now so laughably outdated it almost feels like science-fiction.
