Wall Street 2 - (Ball Street, Flatch Never Sleeps)

[Kaing of Kaings]

Friday night, I took my lady to a dinner and a movie in the town of G'ville. We decided to see the sequel to the totally 80's movie, Wall Street. It has been a long time since I have seen the original Ball Street, and I don't remember most of it. The only thing I really remember is the Talking Heads' song "This Must Be The Place" playing at the ending credits. Well Oliver Stone must like the Talking Heads and David Byrne because the whole Ball Street 2 Soundtrack is full of his music.

Anyway, Ball Street 2 finds Gordon Gekko (an old looking Michael Douglas), getting out of jail for insider trading or something related for screwing people over financially. The next thing we know, Shia LaBeouf wants to marry and ball Gordon's daughter played by Carey Mulligan. Carey and Douglas have not talked to each other for years for some reason and now Gordon wants to get back into Carey's life. So he uses Shia to get to Carey. Meanwhile, the evil Bretton James (played by Josh Brolin in full W. mode) is a super rich dude who wants to buy up Shia's company after the stock market crashes. I won't give much more away but lets just say that greed is still good on Wall Street.

The parallels between the financial crash of 2008 and this movie are obvious. Greed has essentially destroyed everything and the wolves are moving in to eat up the pieces. Oliver Stone does a dorky directing job on this one. For the most part, the movie is watchable and entertaining at times. But I feel it could have been better. The ending scene is totally gay and way to sappy for Oliver Stone's style. He must of said, "Hea, I don't know how to end this so I will just say Hea and film it." If you are a fan of the first one, you should watch this. If not, you should watch The Social Network.

3.5 Stars out of 5.



The cast and director of Ball Street 2. Shia is struggling to hold in a flatch so Carey doesn't smell it.