No, see I totally get the casting choices here. I completely get it and think Carey was probably the most accurate of the casting choices. The worst was Josh Brolin by far. I'm really good at the casting thing, more so on indie flicks then mainstream movies but I take film pretty seriously. Look, let me walk you through my theory. I'm going to give you the backstory of the film as if it were based on a book where that was made into a film. Obviously there is no book, I'm giving you my best guess at what the backstory would be. Ok, Gecko is loaded right most of his life, goes away to prison. I'm assuming his family and kids were taken care of via a family trust. This meant Carey went to a top notch boarding school. I'm betting she was totally hot in high school, probably pretty normal. When she goes off to her liberal arts college, she starts reading "The Nation" and "Mother Jones", chops her hair off and dyes it and starts attending feminist rallies. Basically becomes an uber liberal that looks down on society and money and abhors the thought she is the daughter of Gecko. I'll give you a perfect real life example. Exhibit A: Rachael Maddow. Before pic in high school: After pic when she becomes unattractive left wing nut job. Now, Carey goes to school and meets Shia's character. For all practical purposes, Shia is a wimpy limp wristed tree hugger that could have gone either way, left wing non profit job, or Wall Street. He chose Wall Street but as we see in this movie, this kid wants to start his own left wing blog and is probably 48 hours away from becoming a regular guest on the Rachel Maddow show. This is why Carey falls for him. She figures she can nudge him over. So why is this important? Because using a hot chic to play the role of the girlfriend when Oliver Stone was clearly trying to project his own liberal views on Wall Street, one where it's corrupted by white frat boy jocks who voted for Reagan with this new neo-liberal that works on Wall Street but still attends left wing rallies and secretly wishes Al Gore was President. See, the reason why Brolin was miscast is there should be have been a more white boy, old school, and far younger character. Let me suggest Barry Pepper who played the role to the T in the movie "The 25th Hour". See, this character would have been the guy who would have tried to corrupt Shia more, introduce him to money, hot chics, drugs, you name it. He would have more aptly represented the "I don't give a shit crowd" much better then Brolin. He would been more about the make money now, who cares about the consequences later. This character was played to perfection in Bret Easton Ellis's novel "American "Psycho". The fact of the matter is, Wall Street now is not full of the big muscle bound jocks from the 80's that stereotyped Wall Street. It's full of skinny pricks that weigh 90 lbs with 3 math degrees. They look like girls and date girls that look like boys. And both voted for Obama. I said it before and I'll say it again, this movie would have been better off to not be a sequel instead it should have been a stand alone flick about the crisis. The problem is Stone never would have gotten the money to make the film. Even with the title the film bombed making barely 50 million domestically. Obviously not a great film, but the casting outside of Brolin was spot on.
WOW!!!!!!!!!! Maddow was really pretty in High School!!!!! Now she looks like a bull dyke!!!! EWWWW!!! Plus, I REALLY dislike her! She has the common sense of a tick turd, and you are right, she is a wack job! So is that Kieth oberman scumbag! GRRR!!!!!! Last, Wall st II wasn't a bad movie at all. Nothing like the original, but most sequels (besides Rocky II) aren't home runs. And yes, Brolin sucks.
Well, the motorcycle scene b.s. and many of the other scenes were rather silly and boring. However, Gekko was why I watched, and he NAILED some things that almost made me stand and applaud. Especially when he stood in front of the t.v's in the dept. store window with his future son in law watching financial news on the crisis and pointing out: "those crooks (GS investment bankers, and others) make me look like small potatos." SO TRUE it was! Gotta love Gekko! Don't know why, but I've always liked his character. He had balls to say what he felt. When I speak my mind, I get in trouble, but do it anyway when needed... Maybe that's why I like him! Lol!
Oh brother, and here I thought I could skip this semi-sleeper. But after Mav's casting and back-story dissertation, and being a realist, I now just have to re-view the classic original Wall Street, then watch this underwhelming soap-of-a-sequel.
BTW, here is Barry Pepper playing the role of what should have been Brolin's character for those of you who have not seen "The 25th Hour". <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/irYInw9B9BQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/irYInw9B9BQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
I just saw it last night. I thought it was OK. It kind of lacked a plot a little bit. I do like how they fictionalized the actual events, i.e. Bears Stearns and Chase. I'm surprised they put that "this motion picture is a work fiction. Any similarities to actual events is purely coincidental" line. I'm sure most of what went on there probably happened. I like that speech he gave to the audience. I especially liked the line when he quoted the % of profits of the financial sector as compared to the rest of the economy. Basically, most of the "profits" from the economy, are from company's that don't really "do" anything. Whatever happened to actually making something productive. I've heard some people say the two leads were miscast, but I don't think so. I think the kid played a Wall Street hot shot pretty good. I had just seen the girl in another movie, so I guess I was a little familiar with her. I read somewhere else that her "cuteness is intoxicating" and I think that about sums it up. It's kind of surprising because it seems she wouldn't really be the typical Hollywood choice for this role, but she ends up pulling it off. I kind of like it. She is very much the girl next door type.
Since you are obviously a Fox news watching idiot, just how would you know? But let's get back on topic, I thought the movie was just plain boring. For those who are not in the industry it was probably hard to follow...