Stone's script makes towering mountains out of mysterious minutiae, confident that although we may not be able to classify the rocks, we will be able to map the terrain.

The film benefits enormously from shrewd casting.

Oliver Stone's Wall Street is exactly what I had hoped for -- a sensationally entertaining melodrama about greed and corruption in New York, a movie that evokes the power of big money so strongly that you can savor it on your tongue like Stilton and port.

Without [Michael Douglas'] portrayal of the ruthless corporate ruler who has the instincts of a carnivore, this would be a very ordinary movie. As it is, the film struggles to convince and the script is disappointingly cliched.