Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Eli Wallach, Austin Pendelton, Charlie Sheen

Running Time: 2hrs. 20mins

Throughout its two-hour-and-20 minute running time, Oliver Stone’s sequel to his 1987 financial thriller is relentless, with Josh Brolin, moving on from his previous Stone-helmed performance as George Bush in W., into the role of Bretton James, a heartless, cigar-chomping capitalist villain.

Michael Douglas returns as Gordon Gekko, now released from an over-extended sojourn in prison to seek reconciliation with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Winnie’s fiancé, Jake (Shia LaBeouf), a Wall Street investor who wants to finance green technology, thinks Gekko can help him out. Then comes the 2008 crash, outlined across the Manhattan skyline in a downward-tracking graph, which becomes the beating heart of the plot. Will Jake lose his soul or his job? Will he earn revenge for the suicide of his mentor (Frank Langella)? Will Gekko make a comeback? Has he really changed? Is greed, indeed, still as good?

Finally, will every conversation consist of exposition, an exercise in one-upmanship or a deal being pitched? Banter never sleeps, as each character does a fair simulation of the mystifying buzz of investment jargon but can’t disguise logical plot holes big enough to drive an armoured truck through..

Some of the aphoristic dialogue works superbly however. (“You’re the Ninja generation – no income, no jobs, no assets.”). But too often, the dialogue slips into glib and derivative, and not in the financial sense of the word. We know Gekko is a thief, but it’s strange to hear the character’s best bon mots have been previously used more or less verbatim. Uncredited sources include Adlai Stevenson (“If you promise to stop telling lies about me, I’ll stop telling the truth about you”), Mae West (“Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven’t tried before”) and Rita Mae Brown (“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”).

Also distracting is the coy use of cameos: Charlie Sheen, co-star of the original Wall Street, pops up at a party to say hi. The director himself finds a way into a couple of scenes. And Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has a walk-on. Appearances by old-timers Langella, Sylvia Miles (as a real-estate agent) and Eli Wallach leave the misleading impression that Wall Street might be plagued more by senescence than avarice.

For the most part though, the film is a welcome return show for Douglas, who adds some shades of vulnerability to his familiar, sleazily charming character. The ambiguity of LaBeouf’s character is more troubling, feeling inconsistent rather than intentional, while Mulligan is used sparingly but breaks down and cries really well. Susan Sarandon, as Jake’s free-spending mother, and even Brolin are essentially cartoons. As a film about a sinner trying to right his wrongs (or is he?) with his estranged daughter, while acknowledging his pain - ''Money Never Sleeps'' succeeds brilliantly.

Ultimately, this is Michael Douglas's show and though the claws are retracted, he again reminds us why the Academy voted Gordon Gekko their Man of 1988.

Written and Directed by Ben Affleck

Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Slaine, Owen Burke, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper

Running time: 2hrs 5mins 

With the release of “Gone Baby Gone” in 2008, Ben Affleck climbed from being simply a modestly agreeable actor with a battered professional reputation to an unexpectedly elegant filmmaker, interested in dramatic dark spaces and disturbing questions of morality, stewing in the juices of suburban Boston. “The Town” finds Affleck in a more mainstream mood, mounting a sturdy crime thriller that spotlights the turmoil churning within a soulful, sombre crook. Almost impossibly, Affleck generates a spellbinding pulse to the proceedings, constructing a magnificently exhaustive suspense piece that effectively mines the anxiety of criminal behaviour with the bleak confines of domestic needs.

With his partners in tow, Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a troubled life, successfully pulling off a string of bank and armoured van robberies around the criminal hot spot of the erstwhile town itself - Charleston. When one of the heists goes slightly askew, Doug’s hothead partner James (Jeremy Renner) takes bank manager Claire (the ever-excellent Rebecca Hall) hostage, soon releasing her once the coast is clear. Feeling guilt and attraction for the frightened woman, Doug attempts to develop a relationship with Claire, partially as a way to keep tabs on her, as F.B.I. forces, led by Frawley (John Hamm), move in to investigate. Falling in love, Doug considers a better life with Claire, but Charleston, with all of its insidious secrets and unfinished business, isn’t quite ready to let him go.

Gone Baby Gone was a more insular, reflective piece of thriller cinema, permitting Affleck an opportunity to build as a filmmaker without the crushing weight of a bloated budget or media expectations to distract from the business at hand. The Town however, moves Affleck a considerable distance up the industry ladder, as the film assumes a more commercial batting stance, exploring a blistered blue-collar community of broken dreams and criminal fortitude, with the primary goal of the picture grounded in more customary pieces of excitement. These include numerous shoot-outs, car chases, explosions, and tough guy communication. However, The Town is not just a formula crime thriller, instead it’s an outstanding work, moulded into something a great deal more substantial in Affleck’s capable hands.

Special attention is paid to the brooding neighbourhood of Charleston. Employing his knowledge of the area, Affleck instills The Town with local customs and heated attitudes, making the whole film feel terrifically alert and lived-in. There’s an ominous quality that permeates the frame, emerging from an awareness of the surroundings, with Affleck eschewing glossy locations to turn his Massachusetts backyard into a claustrophobic war zone, urging Doug to reconsider his vocation once the serenity of Claire enters his life. The Town holds to that tightly, keeping the area’s personality alive through vivid locations and characterisations, with dialogue often tearing into incomprehensible vernacular befitting this rough criminal brotherhood, underlining the uneasy bond between Doug and James.

While neatly arranged with hostile acts of robbery (the boys wear ghoulish disguises and attack with heavy weaponry to add a nightmarish dimension to the sequences) and feverish law enforcement intervention (Hamm is highly effective as the government bloodhound), The Town slows down to survey the emotional disturbance at hand. Affleck himself is marvellous with his actors, permitting elements of tentative endearment and threat to create havoc in Doug’s once deceptively simple life of crime. It’s a measured and quite masterly helming job that makes the most of the top ensemble, with Affleck the director supporting Affleck the actor with a horde of expressive faces, creating a glorious effect for the lead character.

The Town saves the big bang for the finale, where Doug and the gang are ordered to rob the Cathedral of Boston, complicating the crook’s life to a point of implosion. It’s a breathtaking, rattling closing sequence, littered with spent bullet casings and bodies, concluding the picture with a dynamite show of force, barrelling through the beating heart of the city.

The Town is a menacing, gripping triumph from Ben Affleck, who finds a precise tone between introspection and extermination to launch a brutal tale of abortive destiny. It’s a turbulent story explored with a steady hand, launching Affleck to the upper echelon of American filmmaking talent.