
Equity movie review: a disappointing return on investment
We’ve never seen this before, multiple female characters open about ambition, power, and money. But representation alone does not make for a gripping tale.
film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
We’ve never seen this before, multiple female characters open about ambition, power, and money. But representation alone does not make for a gripping tale.
In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) returns to slime his adorably retro evil high finance all over a new generation of hotshot young MBAs, including Shia LaBeouf. This flick sprang from (among other films)…
It’s sort of adorable and sort of terrifying to look at Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and see the ultimate 80s icon of sharky, sociopathic greed — Gordon Gekko — reduced to an object of quaint amusement, for both the characters onscreen and for us in the viewing audience.
The presence of Shia LaBeouf as Shia LaBeouf makes me wonder if giant alien robots will show up to stomp on the New York Stock Exchange…
Remember when wrecking companies and trading on inside information was merely cool, instead of something that gets a CEO bailed out by the federal government using taxpayer money? Good times, good times.
About those ‘Other Guys’ closing credits…
And that realistic attitude is a big part of what makes Boiler Room so refreshing: Younger doesn’t offer any pat, happy endings, doesn’t have all his characters wrap things up by kissing and making nice. The film ends on such an abrupt note — and such a perfect one — that I gasped with unexpected delight.