During the past 15 years, filmmaker Oliver Stone has disintegrated from a master chronicler of American culture and history into a half-decent director who simply can’t find his groove.

Once lauded for his indelible depictions of the Vietnam War and the American presidency, the Academy Award-winning director of ‘Platoon’ (1986) has regressed at a startling pace.

A sequel to ‘Wall Street’ (1987), the film that won Michael Douglas an Oscar for Best Actor, ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ is hardly recognizable as its sibling. Stone’s work is clunky and shabbily composed, lacking the excessive machismo that made the first ‘Wall Street’ so likable.

In Stone’s sequel, Douglas reprises his role as Wall Street rock star Gordon Gekko, who’s trying to get his life back together after serving an eight-year prison sentence. Ambitious young broker Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is preparing to marry Gekko’s estranged daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Moore feels high on life despite the suicide of his mentor, Louis Zabel (Frank Langella).

Moore sees Gekko’s return as an opportunity to reunite father and daughter, while picking up a tip or two from the former master. Eager to get in on the action himself, the jobless, relatively penniless Gekko encourages Moore to exact revenge on the man who perpetuated Zabel’s suicide, billionaire Bretton James (Josh Brolin).

While Moore might suspect Gekko’s heart is in the right place, he should know better than to trust the man whose veins flow green with cash.

The first ‘Wall Street’ is not a great film, though Douglas’ titanic performance and Stone’s clever script elevated it to a unique cult status. The sequel, however, is less of a commentary on the American dream than an obnoxious mess of whip pans, match cuts and superimpositions. Eventually, Stone’s aesthetic becomes so jumbled and dizzying that it is impossible to latch onto the action. Where Gekko’s protégé in the 1987 film, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), was equipped with an interesting backstory that lent some depth to his character, LaBeouf is completely one-dimensional and uninteresting.

Gekko, once a great screen icon in the past 15 years, has found his reputation to be all but obliterated in this film. For much of the picture, Gekko is a beggar, subtly scrounging and pleading. What Stone does not understand is that watching the swearing, plotting and endearingly villainous Gekko acting helpless is about as appealing as hearing Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Tramp’ character speak.

Gekko represents the pinnacle of prosperity and capitalist ambition. Even if Stone aims to reveal the direness of the 2008 stock market crash, he should not have attempted to communicate that message through his antagonist. Stone’s ideals are admirable, but his execution is not. Douglas explored the nature of washed-up self-centeredness to an infinitely greater effect in ‘Solitary Man,’ which opened in May.

Even if Stone can no longer be relied on to deliver a great film, he can always be counted on to glean some terrific performances from his actors, with the exception of LaBeouf. ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ would be intolerable if not for the extraordinary performances by Langella, the star of the first 15 minutes of the film, and the dependably great Brolin.

While Stone’s more recent works, ‘World Trade Center’ and ‘W,’ showed a decline in his talent to monopolize on paramount American events, his inability to make a great film related to an area he already successfully explored is downright disappointing.

smlittma@syr.edu

Published on September 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm