HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — In 2001, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), having served his time for securities fraud, money laundering and racketeering, steps outside the gates of a Federal Correctional Facility a changed man. No longer the king of Wall Street, Gekko is unshaven, his hair unkempt. No one is there to meet him, not even his daughter Winnie, from whom he is estranged, nor any of his Wall Street colleagues, who have kept busy during his absence amassing ever-larger fortunes. After eight years inside, Gekko is now alone, and an outsider.
In 2008 Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a smart young proprietary trader, is making millions at the venerable Keller Zabel Investments, run by Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), Jake’s mentor. Jake’s girlfriend, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), meanwhile, is supportive of his drive – fueled by an idealism she finds lacking in her father Gordon – to invest in green energy.
A wave of rumors that Keller Zabel is stuck with billions in toxic debt causes the company’s stock price to suddenly nose-dive, and Louis Zabel is forced to fight for his company’s life at a meeting of the Federal Reserve. When the government refuses a bail-out, Bretton James (Josh Brolin), a partner at the powerful investment bank, Churchill Schwartz, arranges a takeover of Keller Zabel for a fraction of its worth.
Now deeply in debt himself, his employment at risk, and suffering the loss of his mentor, Jake attends a lecture at Fordham University given by Gordon Gekko, who is promoting his new book, Is Greed Good? Gekko’s speech describes how greed is no longer just good – it’s legal – and how a malignancy in the financial system, with its rampant speculation and leveraged debt, will doom the U.S. economy.
Unbeknownst to Winnie, Jake seeks out Gekko and offers to help facilitate a rapprochement with his daughter, while Gekko offers Jake information as to why Louis Zabel was betrayed by his fellow bankers. An alliance is thus formed in order for Jake to avenge Keller Zabel’s fall, and to help Gekko rebuild a relationship with Winnie. But has Gekko truly shed his reptilian skin?
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a story of money at all costs, and the people who will do anything to gain entrée into that most exclusive club of great wealth and power. At the same time, it tells the story of a man’s desperate attempts to reconnect with his daughter – a connection threatened by his equally determined efforts to re-gain admission into a world that has left him behind.
The film’s director, three-time Academy Award winner Oliver Stone, is one of today’s most honored and successful filmmakers. For Stone, returning to the world he captured so memorably in 1987’s Wall Street was not only timely but an opportunity to explore something new. “I think this film is a hell of an entertaining tale and it’s fun,” he says. “I don’t think I would have enjoyed working on Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps if it hadn’t been a wholly original story. Twenty-two years later makes a huge difference. It was very fresh to me.”
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