The Wall Street (1987) is a widely-acclaimed American film that tells the story of Bud Fox, a young and ambitious stockbroker who is eager to succeed in 1980’s New York. Striving to reach the career top, Bud Fox gets involved with Gordon Gekko, one of the most successful stock speculators and corporate raiders on the Wall Street. Abiding by the principle 堵reed is good� Gordon Gekko uses inside information to gain advantage on the market and thus to earn large amounts of money in a short time. He becomes one of the clients of Bud in exchange for inside information he receives, particularly that about the company Bluestar Airlines where Bud’s father works. As one of his assignments, Bud manages to identify the next move of the British CEO Lawrence Wildman, thus enabling Gekko to earn a large sum of money.

Under the guidance of Gekko, Bud Fox learns to manipulate the market and is soon promoted to a senior stockbroker due to high commission fees he brings to the firm. Therefore, he enters the world of yuppies who make fast money in illegal or half-legal business deals and involve in unethical practices. As Bud continues to use inside information and engage straw buyers, his operations are closely watched by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bud persuades Gekko to acquire Bluestar Airlines and expand the company by using savings resulting from union concessions, even despite that his father is hostile to this idea. At one of the shareholders’ meetings, Bud finds out that Gekko has an insidious plan to sell off the company’s assets when the stock price reaches its peak, thus leaving all the Bluestar Airlines staff unemployed.

Though this move will be highly profitable for Bud, he is consumed with guilt as many of the company’s employees have been his friends for a long time. After his father suffers a heart attack, Bud is resolute to prevent Gekko from destroying the company. For this purpose, he persuades Wildman to buy the controlling interest in Bluestar Airlines and advises Gekko to dump his share as the stock price is plummeting. Soon afterwards, Bud is arrested for insider trading, but his cooperation with the police to make a case against Gekko is likely to shorten his prison term.

The action of the film is set in New York in late 1980s. Patrick Bateman is young, handsome and well-educated investment banker who works successfully at his father’s firm. Patrick spends his evenings dining at luxurious restaurants and associating with equally wealthy and arrogant yuppies though he feels antipathy to most of them. He lives in the apartment with lavish interior, buys overpriced designer clothes and is excessively concerned with his appearance. Despite that Patrick can have everything he wants, he feels blatantly bored with his life and releases his inner aggression in serial killing. He ruthlessly rapes, mutilates and kills both strangers and the people he is acquainted with, primarily motivated with envy. Thus, he murders his coworker Paul Allen as his business card design was superior to that of Patrick. The disappearance of Allen is investigated by Donald Kimball who questions Bateman and finds his behavior suspicious. Soon afterwards, Bateman severely bruises two prostitutes he has invited to his apartment.

When Bateman finds out that his coworker Luis Carruthers has made a new sumptuous business card, he is overwhelmed with envy and he makes a failing attempt to strangle Luis in the lavatory of an expensive restaurant. Bateman invites his secretary, Jean, to his apartment with the intention to kill her, but eventually decides to let her go when he receives a message from his fiancee. Having violently killed two women he was sexually engaged with, Bateman breaks up with his fiancee with a lame explanation of his action. At night, Bateman shoots a woman who tries to prevent him from feeding a cat to an ATM, which results in a a police chase. Bateman manages to escape by shooting at the gas tanks of pursuing cars and kills two more people in the office building. At his office, Bateman confesses his murders on the answering machine of his lawyer, Harold. However, Harold takes this confession as a joke and denies Allen’s being murdered. Bateman thus continues to get away with the violent crimes he has committed and he still does not feel sated with the sufferings he has inflicted on others. The film ends with Bateman saying that his confession did not mean anything.