Wall Street

Plot hole: The scene in Central Park where Bud tapes Gekko never would have happened. Gekko's comments imply that he was unaware of Bud's arrest earlier that morning (not just that Gekko was unaware he was being taped). (1) Gekko makes comments that the Feds are pleased with, at least to some extent incriminating himself. (2) Gekko doesn't say something like: "OK, now you've been pinched, here's what you do." BUT - how in the world would Gekko not know of Bud's arrest? Even in the days before the internet, information spread like wildfire on Wall Street. All the brokers in Bud's office would be on the phones saying "they just arrested Gekko's broker!" Everyone on Wall Street, especially someone like Gekko, would find out, and far more quickly than the time it took to schlep Bud up to Central Park and strap a recorder on him.

Factual error: The opening shot (of the New York Stock Exchange's trading floor) has the subtitle "1985," which might lead one to expect that at least the action in the first few scenes takes place in the year 1985. However, when Charlie Sheen is talking to his Nimrod broker buddy the Nimrod jokes that the day the Challenger exploded, Gekko was on the phone "selling NASA stock short." The Challenger exploded in January, 1986, not 1985. [An explanation for this: Wall Street, as conceived and filmed, was supposed to be set in 1987. However, near the end of 1986, The Ivan Boesky insider-trading scandal hit, many rules were changed, and acknowledging those events would have undone much of the plotting of the movie. So the movie was shifted back in time to 1985 (before the scandals, and also before the Challenger disaster), thus creating this major goof].

More mistakes in Wall Street

Gordon Gekko: This is the kid, calls me 59 days in a row, wants to be a player. There ought to be a picture of you in the dictionary under persistence, kid.

More quotes from Wall Street

Trivia: Bud Fox's name was originally Joe Fox, but it was changed after it was discovered Joe Fox was a real stockbroker, who wouldn't give permission for his name to be used.

Cubs Fan

More trivia for Wall Street

Answer: The 6th of May.

don_corleone

More questions & answers from Wall Street

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.