Wall Street (film)

Wall Street is an American film released in 1987. It was directed by Oliver Stone, and features Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Martin Sheen, Hal Holbrook, Sean Young and Terence Stamp. Douglas won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Hannah's performance was not well received and earned her a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress. The film has come to be seen as the archetypal portrayal of 1980s excess, with Douglas as the "Master of the Universe." Wall Street was written by Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone.

Arguably the most memorable scene in the film is a speech by Gekko to a shareholders' meeting of Teldar Paper, a company he is planning to take over. Stone uses this scene to give Gekko, and by extension, the Wall Street raiders he personifies, the chance to justify their actions, which he memorably does, pointing out the slothfulness and waste that corporate America accumulated through the postwar years and from which he sees himself as a "liberator":

Tagline:Every dream has a price.

Cast

Charlie Sheen - Bud Fox
Tamara Tunie - Carolyn
Franklin Cover - Dan
Chuck Pfeiffer - Chuckie (as Chuck Pfeifer)

John C. McGinley - Marvin
Hal Holbrook - Lou Mannheim

James Karen - Lynch
Leslie Lyles - Natalie

Michael Douglas - Gordon Gekko
Faith Geer - Natalie's Assistant
Frank Adonis - Charlie
John Capodice - Dominick

Martin Sheen - Carl Fox

Suzen Murakoshi - Girl in Bed
Dani Klein - Receptionist

Plot

The story involves a young stockbroker, Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen), who is desperate to get to the top. He settles on a plan to become involved with his hero, the extremely successful and wealthy but unscrupulous corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas).

After succeeding in attaining an audience with Gekko, Fox proposes a number of stock tips, all of which are soundly rejected. As a desperate last attempt to earn Gekko's favor, Fox gives him a stock tip based on secret insider information he obtained from his father, Carl (Martin Sheen, Charlie's real-life father). Carl is a maintenance chief at a small airline, Bluestar, who learns that they will soon be cleared of a safety concern after a previous crash.

Fox quickly learns that this is the secret to Gekko's success—insider information—and the illegalities and ethical conflict bother him only slightly as he is quickly admitted into Gekko's inner circle. Gekko takes Fox under his wing and he quickly becomes very wealthy, enjoying Gekko's promised perks, including the fancy apartment and the trophy blonde interior decorator Darien (Daryl Hannah).

Things change when Gekko decides to sell off Bluestar's assets, an act that would leave Carl and the entire Bluestar staff out of work. Wracked with the guilt of being an accessory to Bluestar's destruction, Fox takes up smoking (a habit he often chastised his father for having), angrily breaks up with Darien, and finally resolves to stop Gekko's plans. Fox devises a plan in which he will manipulate Bluestar's stock value so that Gekko will decide to sell off his stock in the company, which will then be picked up at a lower price by Gekko's rival, corporate raider Sir Lawrence Wildman (Terence Stamp), who will become the new majority shareholder. Gekko, realizing that his stock is plummeting, lashes out furiously at Fox and finally decides to dump his remaining stock in the company. Only later does Gekko learn that Fox engineered the entire scheme.

The next day, Fox happily returns to the office, where everyone is in a somber mood. Upon arriving at his desk, Fox is greeted by law enforcement officials and a representative of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who informs Fox that he is under arrest for violation of federal securities laws. Fox is handcuffed and led out of the office in tears.

Later, Fox confronts Gekko in Central Park. Gekko viciously assaults Fox, and in the process mentions several businesses that Fox helped him raid. Fox was wearing a wire, and the police presumably use the recording as state's evidence against Gekko, although Gekko's fate is left ambiguous. The film ends with Bud arriving at the courthouse, ready to atone for his crimes.

References in popular culture
1993's Hot Shots! Part Deux had a scene where Charlie Sheen was seen on a boat going up a river, writing a letter as we heard his voiceover narration from Platoon. In further acknowledgement of that, another boat passes in the opposite direction with Martin Sheen himself reciting his narration from Apocalypse Now. As the craft pass, father and son simultaneously shout at each other, "I loved you in Wall Street!"
In the 2000 film Boiler Room, some of the young stockbrokers in that film are shown watching Wall Street on video. During the scene where Bud goes to Gekko's office for the first time and listens as he converses on the phone about the CEO of a company he is considering taking over, they turn down the volume and recite his lines ("Their quarterlies are for shit! - If this guy owned a funeral parlor, nobody would die!!!") in unison.
Future Stock, an episode of the animated television series Futurama, takes much of its inspiration from Wall Street.[citation needed]
In a 2005-06 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a Professor tells Detectives Goren and Eames his alibi saying that he was screening Wall Street for his class in business ethics.
In the famous British sitcom Only Fools And Horses, main character Del Boy revamps his image and bases himself on Gordon Gekko at the start of series 6.[citation needed]
In an episode of The Sarah Silverman Program there is a scene in which a young girl recites Gordon Gekko's famous "Greed is Good" scene.
In the PC game Warcraft III, typing the cheat "greedisgood X" will give you Gold and Lumber equivalent to the value of X
In another PC game Fallout 2, a ghoul NPC called Gordon can be found in the town called Gecko, and he talks about greed, and how good it is.
In the Wario World GameCube commercial, the "Greed is Good" theme is parodied.
In the television serial Chuck in the episode Chuck vs. the Sandworm, the character Morgan is addressed by the phrase, "Hey you in the Gordon Gekko costume."