8367. pseudoerasmus - 4/16/00 4:30:10 PM
I have yet to see a movie which takes place in Wall Street (or any other financial market environment) where the depiction of bankers and banking has much realism or plausibility. American Psycho had none -- none of the characters is ever seen doing anything remotely resembling banking.

Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" had a smidgen of realism, but the core story was so stupid and unbelievable (a cold-calling broker, i.e., a nobody, manages to insinuate himself into the graces of a corporate raider) that it failed as satire before it began.

8368. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 5:04:44 PM
The basis of Sheen's relationship with Douglas in Wall Street was built on insider information that the young man passed on during a two-minute meeting Sheen had arranged after months of begging Douglas' personal secretary for some face time. During the short meeting, Douglas all but ignores Sheen, accepting his gift of contraband Cuban cigars and working deals with several assistants in the room. At the end of the meeting, after several of his pet research projects are perfunctorily shot down by Douglas, Sheen in desperation refers to insider information he has acquired through his father. He doesn't tell Douglas where he got it, but Douglas recognizes the information as significant and makes a bundle out of it.

Given Stone's capacity for fantasy, this seems about as realistic a premise for establishing a relationship between a low-level broker and a famous corporate-raider as any you'll find in his movies. Douglas simply takes advantage of a young guy whose ambition exceeds his ethics. Yeah, I know. That could be just about anybody on Wall Street. But Sheen has shown himself to be persistent, practically in love in Douglas, and very useful. Douglas recognizes he can takes advantage of this and the story begins.

8369. pseudoerasmus - 4/16/00 6:07:32 PM
It's not so much the circumstances of the meeting between Sheen and Douglas, but all the goings-on. First of all, brokers are nobody (they're retail) and what anybody with ambition in Wall Street would be doing working as a broker is unfathomable. Second, no corporate raider would go near a broker. Why would he? Third, the way "insider information" was collected in that movie was just silly. Insider information in the financial markets has always come from people with an insider's access to business deals. There was some of that in the movie Wall Street, but most of it was skullduggery with Sheen posing as a janitor and snooping around in corporate offices, or some such nonsense.

8370. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:34:50 PM
I agree that almost all of the plot of Wall Street is unrealistic, but the circumstances of the first meeting between Douglas and Sheen strikes me as reasonable. An older, egotistical man is flattered by a young go-getter's attention; he also is satisfied he can make use of the young man in just one meeting to make a good bundle of money. There was nothing in Wall Street to suggest Douglas needed Sheen at that time. Perhaps he saw something of Sheen in his younger self. Perhaps -- as Cellar might say -- Douglas was a latent homosexual. In any case, the circumstances of that first meeting were believable, if not typical. After that, there was much silliness.

But Wall Street is an allegory so some of that silliness was just plot contrivances to keep the audience entertained as the moral was being pounded into it.

This is an interesting subject. What films do give an informative -- as opposed to entertaining -- look at business -- any area of business, not just finance?

I can think of a couple that are pretty good at describing the culture of business (In the Company of Men and Glengary Glen Ross). But the mechanics of business -- as opposed to its culture -- are pretty dull, not really worth the trouble of accurately transcribing on film.

8371. CalGal - 4/16/00 8:43:34 PM
One of the better portrayals of corporate culture I've seen in a while was the otherwise useless Disclosure, with Douglas (again) and Demi Moore. It captured technology company politics better than I would have expected.

The only other movie that deal with corporate finance that I can think of right now was Working Girl, and I would be surprised to learn that it was accurate. But you never know.

8372. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:44:00 PM
I'm having a hard time thinking of movies that deal with business in a generic sense. If you wanted to, you could include movies like The Player or The Godfather under a liberal definition of business movies, but that seems so wide a definition as to be meaningless.

The Hudsucker Proxy is a business movie. Anything else?

8373. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:45:13 PM
Those are two pretty good examples.

8374. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:49:00 PM
A damn good movie based on a pretty good book about a corporate takeover was Barbarians at the Gate. It's a factual account of the takeover of RJR Nabisco. Its plot would seem fantastical if the elements and names in it were transferred to another movie title and mixed around a bit.

8375. CalGal - 4/16/00 8:52:09 PM
The Boiler Room just came out--haven't heard much one way or another on its accuracy.

A movie that I thoroughly enjoyed was Barbarians at the Gate (technically an HBO movie). I don't think it captured enough of the specifics of LBOs, but James Garner was a hell of a lot of fun.

8380. JudithAtHome - 4/17/00 6:55:16 AM
Wasn't Putney Swope a business movie? I guess its satire was too broad to qualify it as a serious look at business, though.

8381. Cellar Door - 4/17/00 7:13:20 AM
Actually "Putney Swope" is an excellent business movie. "Executive Suite" was on TCM the other night, and it's top-notch. But as a whole I'd say that the world of big business remains largely unexamined. To a large extent this has to do with the middle-class bias of the mass media. Plenty of stuff about Willie Loman, but nothing about the boss of his company. "Glengarry Glenn Ross" and "The Boiler Room" are about teams of proto-Willies in competition with one another. "Wall Strett" is, needless to say, a crock.

Hey, it's an Oliver Stone movie.

8382. theDiva - 4/17/00 7:16:00 AM
The Desk Set. Now there's a bidness movie.

8383. Cellar Door - 4/17/00 7:18:35 AM
True.
8385. pseudoerasmus - 4/17/00 7:35:21 AM
To a large extent this has to do with the middle-class bias of the mass media.

Cellar oozes with wisdom!

I wager it has more to do with the fact that script writers in Hollywood lack experience in the corporate world. They're more likely to have been clerks in a video store.
8387. Dusty - 4/17/00 7:44:33 AM
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my first introduction to the business world.

8390. Raskolnikov - 4/17/00 7:54:59 AM
...

One Wall Street movie which *struck* me as having a more realistic take, was "Other People's Money". Not having worked on Wall Street, I can't vouch for the realism, but a lot of it had a ring of truth. "Wall Street" lacked that ring of truth. Sheen's detective work in looking for inside information was damned silly.
8392. pseudoerasmus - 4/17/00 8:01:47 AM
# 8390

Raskolnikov, a single line does not a theme make. The plot had nothing whatsoever to do with investment banking and there was not even an attempt to connect the culture of investment bankers with serial killing.