First Hit: After, what I would call, a clunky start this film ended up being pretty good.
There have been numerous Wall Street based films showing the attitude and lifestyles of the people who work there.
This films starts near its end then rewinds 6 weeks to show how one Wall Street player gets to the point where he’s standing in the rain, without his wallet and borrowing money from a girl to pay another one off.
However, this isn’t the point of the film, and for this I was grateful. The rewind gives you an illusion that Tommy (played by Scott Porter) is really an up-front guy especially when he goes against his boss Cash (played by Andrew McCarthy) for letting Tommy’s top broker leave the company.
As his replacement, Tommy wants the honest quiet guy Daniel (played by Bryan Greenberg) to take his place. Tommy takes Daniel under his wing and attempts to teach him how to be a player in the market and in life. He tries to show him how to pick up women and be the kind of guy clients want to trust.
But Daniel holds true to form and although he can put a deal together, when it comes to interpersonal relationships he is simply a nice, open and thoughtful kind of man. He meets up with Tommy’s latest girlfriend Beth (played by Alexis Bledel) only realize that he genuinely likes her.
The story line is reasonably and surprisingly strong and the film has a way of capturing your interest after the initial 10 minutes of clumsy set-up.
Scott Porter effectively carries the look and feel of a Wall Street player who makes more money than he needs and has let it go to his head. The scenes when he gets blown off by one of his sex partners and leaves the club angry only to be standing in the street making call after call to find a girl he’s going to sleep with that night is effective and telling. He dials the number, puts on his game face, only to leave a message that says he’s ready to see her if she's available. McCarthy is good as Porters boss and sarcastic enough to be believable. Bledel is very good at walking the line of trusting and not trusting her boyfriend Tommy. Her words and facial expressions are very good at portraying this. Greenberg is also very good at holding his character in place. He’s thoughtful and yet trying to be in a business that is thoughtless and he does this very well.
Overall: I would have thought that this film would do better than it has done so far and would recommend seeing it if it shows up at a theater, DVD, or On Demand sometime.