Movie Review - Wall Street - Essay Example

The movie showed how only a few privileged people can control the entire financial resources in a country with a capitalist structure. The sharks and the lambs of the stock market have been given human shapes and the movie shows how they let their lives be controlled with the single passion of becoming richer by the hour, with greed being described as a virtue in the big bad world of a capitalist society. The movie also shows how inner conscience can assist a person in doing the right thing when confronted with moral decisions.

Wall Street is the location of the New York Stock exchange which is the world’s leading hub of business activity where stocks are bought and sold and is an enigma for the common man inciting fear and awe among the uninitiated.  Common people fail to understand the intricacy of markets and the way big business operates. The movie entitled ‘Wall Street’ was therefore the best way to introduce the common man to the intricacies of the business world. It shows how ambition and greed can make a person a mere pawn in the juggernaut known as the stock market. Personal life takes a toll when a person gets involved in a highly demanding and competitive environment leaving no room for human desires and pleasures. Every facet of human values acquires a financial angle. The main character of the movie, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is enraptured by the ambition of becoming rich overnight by following the footsteps of Gekko, played by Michael Douglas who is a wily stockbroker with a history of an extremely successful career as an investor(Berardinelli, 2009). In the process, Bud throws caution out of the window and gets into the inner circle of the big bad world by exposing inside information about the ‘Blue Star’ company in which his father is an employee. He gains Gekko’s confidence, who admires greed as a virtue. Gekko is sharp enough to recognize the potential in Bud and is successful in transforming him into a mere pawn in his hand and utilizes him to get inside information from big business operators even by unscrupulous means. Bud’s career takes a positive turn but just in terms of financial success as he is catapulted into activities and relationships solely driven by business. It is only at a late stage that Bud recognizes the folly of his actions which puts at risk his own father’s job and the rest of the labor class at the Blue Star company with whom he had shared his childhood. He responds by making amends and beating Gekko at his own game by making a smart business move that upsets the latter’s apple cart.

The movie was a wake-up call for American society to understand the underlying and hidden characteristics of a capitalist world and how it can determine their destiny. The events in history since the release of this movie have proven the point it had tried to convey as seen by the problems faced by the common man during the current recession.