San Sebastian 2023 | ‘Wall Street Blow’: an ingenious revenge against the financial wolves with flashes of Scorsese and Adam McKay

In 2007, the Australian Craig Gillespie He won over film critics by directing Ryan Gosling in Lars and a real girl, and in the last five years he has confirmed his talent behind the camera with titles as notable as I, Tonya (2017), Cruella (2021) or the series Pam & Tommy (2022).

It is not surprising that his new job, Blow to Wall Street, has been one of the most anticipated productions within the program of the San Sebastian Festival. The filmmaker surrounds himself with stars like Sebastian Stan (with whom he agrees after I, Tonya and Pam & Tommy), Seth Rogen, Paul Dano and Pete Davidson to rescue the most ferocious assault on the market in recent years.

The film follows the case of some Reddit users who, in 2021, played the game with Wall Street bigwigs by buying shares of the video game store GameStop so that they would increase in value. Good financial struggles have always been good for cinema, especially when the lamb bites the wolf. Is Gillespie’s up to par?

‘Wall Street Blow’: movie review

Craig Gillespie’s cinema draws heavily on that of Martin Scorsese, especially in the visual and narrative dynamism, and in the maddening rhythm of its sequences. For this reason, his latest film, critical of capitalism and the financial system that benefits the privileged classes, reminds at times (and very much in the distance) of The wolf of Wall Street (2013).

The main handicap of Blow to Wall Street It is precisely that it does not discover anything new; What’s more, he constantly feeds on the topics of films that immerse themselves in the financial market and automatically remembers titles like The big bet (2015) or Game of weapons (2016). It shares with them the cadence of the plot, the combination of formats and the introduction of archive images, even the Hollywood cast dedicated to the cartoonish characters.

However, it departs from its predecessors by tiptoeing through banking technicalities to focus on the story he is interested in highlighting: that of David against Goliath. That is, small investors seeking to pay their mortgages against large speculators who never believed they saw their situation in danger. At the risk of falling into superficiality by focusing on the lives of its protagonists instead of better explaining the complex financial context, it manages to bring the story closer to the viewer.

We inevitably connect with these lambs who put on the skin of a wolf to win over the powerful on their hitherto unattainable terrain. This film is not about morality or ending an unequal system, but rather about using that same corrupt system to overthrow the ringleaders, it talks about the satisfaction of rebelling against the status quo.

And like every revolution needs an instigator, he is at the head of a perfectly well-oiled cast. A magnificent Paul Dano He tightens his red bandana and puts on his best cat t-shirt as Keith Gill, geek visionary and unlikely champion thanks to the expansion of new channels of influence. He is curiously the most contained in a catwalk of characters that are each more eccentric, from Pete Davidson’s absurd brother/comic relief to Seth Rogen’s clumsy and sloppy millionaire.

This production does not reach the brilliance of The wolf of Wall Street Nor is it as biting as Adam McKay’s cinema, but, from a simpler and less ambitious position, it delves into the genre knowing how to connect with our David fed up with the hegemony of Goliath and sharply banishes the battered fantasy of the American dream.

It is the agile and idealistic comedy in which the bullied wins over the bully, in which the weak, united, scare the strong, even if only for a little while. It’s an entertaining revenge made easier by the current exacerbation of the virtual in which the depressed raise their weapons They target them daily and it is impossible not to feel a certain satisfaction when the bank, for once, does not win.

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