Wall Street
Dir: Oliver Stone
1987
****
Films are generally measured on their success. There are several ways to measure this. Films can often perform badly and get overlooked by the general public but still receive critical acclaim, Wall Street however achieved acclaim from both public and critics alike. It is regarded as a success. Success can also be measured on how well the film's messaged was received. In this respect, I wonder whether Wall Street was in fact a complete failure. Oliver Stone (the only Left-wing Buddhist War veteran working in Hollywood today) wrote an anti-Capitalist film with the famously dark line 'Greed is Good' to help show the world the nasty truth about Capitalism and corporate dominance. The lesson didn't work and the real Wall Street banker soon adopted the catch phrase for themselves, blinded by the rich and wonderful world they could have. Edward Abbey once said "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Cancer can live without a host and low and behold, look at what happened. To be fair, it was always going to take more than a film to convince certain people but the fact Wall Street was released in 1987 goes to show just how ahead of his time Oliver Stone really was. A Successful failure it might be but it doesn't take away the fact that it is an entertaining film with brilliant direction and performances, and a good example of social history of that time.