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A brief prologue (with an amusing sight gag) shows Gekko released from prison in October 2001, after serving nearly a decade for insider trading, unclaimed by anyone outside the gates, as much as a ghost to the world as the empty space where the world’s tallest buildings once stood across the river from his cell. The film then picks up in 2008 shortly before the U.S. economy began to hemorrhage.

In constructing the narrative that follows, Stone and co-writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff opt for a focus on relationships, primarily parent/child but also mentor/protégé, rather than a blistering indictment of the real-life financial circumstances. (For these, something like Charles Ferguson’s documentary Inside Job would be key viewing.) And perhaps those are false expectations to have for a big-budget ($70 million) star vehicle (Douglas and Shia LaBeouf) directed by the Oliver Stone of 2010. The tone here is more elegiac than confrontational - although it certainly hums at times with verbal sparring and sly digs at our culture enraptured with whatever apocalypse of the moment can sell fear to the public - and in that way it is a continuation of sorts from World Trade Center and, to a lesser degree, W.

The in-the-face-style, visual overload and historical record overhauling featured in films such as The Doors, JFK, and Nixon; and the savage satirical indictments on display in Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, and Any Given Sunday have given way to more measured tones in his last two films. World Trade Center made the political personal by reducing its 9/11 story strictly to the rescue of the two last survivors from the collapse of the Twin Towers. It was as honestly sentimental and old school Hollywood as anything he has ever done although I preferred the docudrama approach of United 93. W., far from being the hatchet job hysterical conservatives were expecting, was a low-key and quirky look at a life-long failure’s Quixotic rise to commander-in-chief and at least did as much to redeem him in my eyes, as Stone’s Nixon did for establishing him as a tragic figure on par with any in Shakespeare.

Bringing Gekko back to the here and now promises jolts that the movie ultimately never comes through with, but it delivers solid entertainment for at least three quarters of its running time, and once it becomes clear that Stone is in reflective mode and that the movie is going to play coy - not once but twice - about Gekko’s true intentions, rather than have him be in full unredeemed mode, there are small pleasures to be had and upon which to focus, particularly some sharp character turns by a gallery of stars and character actors, and a soundtrack that provides a weird parallel to the first film.

The chief conceit of the plot is that Gekko’s 20-something estranged daughter Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), a content writer for a Huffington Post-like website, is living with and soon becomes engaged to one Jake Moore (LaBeouf). Moore is a young Wall Street trader (Daddy issues, what Daddy issues?) but one who has a good heart - he doesn’t fool around when opportunity in a short skirt knocks and then sits down at a nightclub; he supports the effort of a “green” research scientist - to balance out his drive for money and power. When the head of Moore’s firm/his father figure (Frank Langella in a small role, effectively cast against type) is professionally crushed by a rival’s power play, Moore seeks out father Gekko on the sly for advice and soon finds himself caught between several generations of professional, personal and familial conflicts.

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