Fox recently unveiled the first wave of titles in the Filmmakers Signature Series, a handsome low-priced Blu-ray series featuring a director-approved HD transfer and a 26-page (28, counting covers) full-color booklet, plus many of the bonus features that appeared on an earlier edition. “Wall Street” was one of the first to be included.
When you direct a film that wins Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director, what do you do for an encore? Well, after “Platoon,” Oliver Stone looked inward and turned to his family history. There had never been a great film made about business, groused his dad, who worked on Wall Street for 34 years. And so Stone turned his attention to the world his father inhabited. In the commentary and on one of the bonus features, Stone tells us that the decent, philosophical character played by Hal Holbrook is the one patterned after his father, to whom the film is dedicated.
The ruthless Gordon Gekko is another story. Gekko is a Wall Street wizard who gets the best tables at restaurants, moves to the front of the line at swanky clubs, and never has any trouble finding a beautiful woman to hang on his arm. That’s what happens when you buy and sell companies, stocks, and commodities with all the ruthlessness of a man who can quote from Sun-Tzu (“Read Sun-Tzu’s ‘The Art of War.’ Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.”). Think Bain Capital. But for every person who’s appalled by such a cutthroat approach to business and life, there will be an admirer who wants that lifestyle. And Gekko says plenty of quotable lines worth jotting down as he tries to tutor a new protégé.
If I had a brain that was wired differently and aspired to become a take-no-prisoners success in the business world, I’d probably replay some of Gekko’s lines over and over again in my head:
- Greed is good.
- Money never sleeps.
- Lunch is for wimps.
- It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.
- I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things.
- You got 90 percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal.
- If you’re not on the inside, you’re outside.
- If you need a friend, get a dog.
Michael Douglas is so Gordon Gekko that it’s hard to believe he was Stone’s third choice. Good thing Richard Gere and Warren Beatty passed, because Douglas’s performance earned the only Oscar for “Wall Street.” Though he wasn’t recognized for his role, Charlie Sheen, fresh from working with Stone on “Platoon,” is perfectly cast as the Gekko wannabe who cold-calls his hero 39 days in a row and brings him a box of Cuban cigars on his birthday, just to get five minutes of his time. That five minutes changes his life, and not all for the better.
Yes, young Bud Fox feels his star start to rise after he feeds Gekko inside information that he gets from his father (real-life dad Martin Sheen), a union man at a small airplane manufacturing company. And yes, he finds himself getting the woman on his arm that Gekko usually has (Daryl Hannah). But you suspect all along where this cautionary business fable is going. Though Gekko isn’t above bending or breaking the law–he gathers illegal insider trading information as routinely as the rest of us read newspapers–he’s smart enough to have underlings sign documents saying that they alone are responsible. If somebody’s going to prison, it’s not going to be the big dog.
Sadly, almost 25 years later, the film’s subject matter is still current. There are still hordes of Gordon Gekkos out there scheming to build the next Enron and let the little guys take the fall. Maybe Stone knew all along how timeless his film would become, and filming totally in Manhattan certainly adds to the sense of realism. Some of the seedier elements of the city had to be cut, he regrets, but there’s still a strong New York City atmosphere and a Wall Street “look” that really feels like insider information.
One other thing struck me, and this is a pure side note. I was surprised to see the same goofy, toothy performance from John G. McGinley (“Scrubs”) as Bud’s cold-calling cubicle pal, Marvin, that he more recently gave in “Are We Done Yet?” Hal Holbrook’s character represents the moral side of business, a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach that eschews anything illegal or unethical and tries to consider the human element—something about which the Gekkos of the world could care less.
Video:
Fans of “Wall Street” know that this is one rough-looking film. The opening title sequence is so rough and so riddled with grain that you wonder why anyone would bother with an HD release. Graininess persists throughout the film, but it’s not quite as bad as on the DVD. As grainy as “Wall Street” is, it’s also not a vibrant film to look at. It features a color palette that seems sedate as a business suit. You notice this when occasional bursts of color flare up, as when Hannah is decked out in a bright dress. Otherwise, everything looks slightly dull or washed-out.
Curious, I popped in the first Blu-ray of “Wall Street” and did a few scene comparisons, and while they seem close, I actually preferred the less grainy opening sequence of the first release to this new Stone-approved AVC/MPEG-4 transfer. It’s presented in 1.85 aspect ratio, and aside from noise on some surfaces, it looks as good as this film is going to look.
Audio:
I didn’t notice much of a difference in the audio. Like the first Blu-ray release the featured audio is an English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Lossless soundtrack (32 MBPS) that’s clear and well-balanced, but with only an okay spread. Dialogue and sounds seem to hang around the speakers rather than travel across the room. Additional options are English 4.0 Dolby Digital (the original soundtrack), and Spanish and French Mono, with subtitles in English SDH and Spanish.
Extras:
If you haven’t heard Stone talk before, it takes some getting used to. He speaks with such matter-of-fact seriousness that it sounds like a commuter train engineer talking about his day. There’s not much in the way of excitement displayed, though Stone will crack the occasional joke. But there’s plenty of information and illustrations here to show why Stone is such a successful filmmaker. I’d rate the commentary as slightly above-average. Also carry-overs from the two-disc DVD are two short features, “Greed is Good” and “Money Never Sleeps.”
The making-of documentary is unfortunately a snooze button. I found it just plain dull, as I did Stone’s “introduction.” Better were the 20-some short deleted scenes with Stone’s optional commentary, which finds the director identifying scenes that he wishes he hadn’t cut, telling why ones had to go, and bemoaning the “waste of money” that one scene was.
Bottom Line:
Stone gives us a strong follow-up to “Platoon” with strong performances. “Wall Street” is for all the ladder-climbers out there, and all the people under them who feel like rungs. It’s solid, but no showcase for HD. And though Stone approved this all-new HD transfer, I frankly can’t tell much of a difference between this version and the previously released Blu-ray.
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