A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider who takes the youth under his wing.
So apparently this movie is a classic and was rated pretty high on IMDb and everything, but I just didn't like it. Maybe it was the whole 'finance' theme or the fact that I know absolutely NOTHING when it comes to stocks and stockbrokers and this movie didn't take the time to explain it to me.
Again I watched this movie for a class I'm taking, I don't think I would have ever ever ever watched this on my own time.
The main character is Bud Fox and he's played by Charlie Sheen (I'm not really a big fan of him either so this movie was destined for disaster in my opinion) who wants to be a big time stockbroker in the 80s. His father is all about hard work, but Bud just wants money. Lots and lots of money.
This leads to him meeting with the obnoxiously rich Michael Douglas who plays Gordon Gekko. Although I love the character name (the alliteration, the harsh reptilian vibe, etc.) I didn't love the character. Not to say the acting was bad at all, just I wasn't a huge fan of the script.
Actually the acting was a big part in why I could actually stand to watch this movie. Everyone in this movie really showed off their skills--even Charlie Sheen. It was very refreshing to see him in a serious role for a change...although there was still a heavy emphasis on the sex scenes.
Long story short, Gordon convinces Bud to do some shady things and keeps rewarding him when he does everything without getting caught. Then he gets caught. Some legal stuff occurs but then Gordon also gets caught and it's assumed he's arrested and blah, blah, blah. Bud goes to jail and that's the end of the movie.
For such a simple plot, this movie was forever long. It was 126 minutes which was wayyyy longer than it needed to be. For me the slowest parts were when Bud was actually working with stocks and money management. Like I said earlier, I know nothing about this kind of thing and no one took the time to explain it to me. I understood what Bud was doing was wrong, illegal and generally frowned upon by everyone he works with, but that's about all I got from those scenes. Which I guess in hindsight those scenes were pretty important and not understanding them definitely affected my understanding of and reaction to the movie.
Maybe someone with more interest in 80s finance would find this movie entertaining. But I will never watch this movie again of my own free will. Ever.
2 stars, for the awesome acting.
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