Does a story always have a message?

If two movies are just alike, and one references the other, does the new movie have any value? Or, what message can a writer/director convey by remaking a thirteen-year-old film while employing scenes from the original? Or is the second film simply a new story, worth telling in and of itself?

What message does the movie Boiler Room attempt to communicate?

Boiler Room, 2000, written for the screen and directed by Ben Younger, starring Giovanni Ribisi, follows a son’s quest to gain his father’s affirmation by joining a fast-money trading firm selling stock for a nonexistent pharmaceutical company. Though the territory of the film is limited to New York stock exchange, the subject matter is Seth’s (Ribisi) response to his father. A street-wise, under-achieving college drop-out, Seth at first rakes in the dough when he becomes a shrewd cold-calling stock salesman. The newfound success seems to impress his father, a city judge, until both find fraud in the company. The father dismisses his son as dishonest. Seth confronts his father, finally revealing his desire for favor, and the father responds deeply. The son asks his father to buy false stock in order to make fast money for the two of them before abandoning the company entirely. Eager to meet his son’s confession with good faith, the father assents. At this point the team of investigators trailing the company makes an offer the son can’t refuse, threatening to take away the father’s judgeship as well as Seth’s freedom without cooperation in prosecuting the company. Seth agrees on the condition that the judge remains unassociated with the company and its wrong-doings. The movie ends with Seth walking out of the office building, the company’s records in hand.

A strong element of Greed opposes the true reconciliation of father to son throughout the film. For the company, the art of making money lies in the sale. Tell the client whatever he needs to hear in order to make that sale. This theme reverberates through every moment of training Seth receives. The biggest sale we witness is Ben Affleck’s presentation to a room of twenty would-be stock brokers. As an intro, he throws the keys to his Ferrari out on the table, leaving no doubt that the name of the game for this company is money. He instructs the recruits to respond to any questioning family members with steady payments on the relative’s Lexus. Disregard the people who tried to raise you, because only money and power matter now. To cap it off, the co-workers spend their spare time reciting lines from the film, Wall Street.

Michael Douglas portrays Gordon Gekko, the personification of Greed in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, 1987, and he also shepherds a young, cold-calling broker into a world of insider trading. Charlie Sheen’s character, Bud, strives to prove his worth to his dad, played coincidentally by Charlie’s dad, Martin Sheen. In order to make his first sale to Gekko, Bud volunteers information learned from his father about his father’s company. Gekko quickly shows Bud how much he values such information by sending a high class hooker with a limo and an all-night pass to any club in Manhattan. Bud then fashions his friendships around town into avenues of information. Seemingly over night, Bud becomes Gekko’s personal trader and espionage specialist. Bud uses his success to impress his father: Go get yourself a new bowling jacket! Hoping to use his power and trading savvy to improve his father’s company, Bud draws up a plan for Gekko to purchase the company. Of four union representatives who must approve the plan, Bud’s father is the only one who refuses, citing Gekko’s lack of personal interest in the company. Lo and behold, the next day Bud’s informers leak that Gekko does plan to sell off the company in pieces, vaporizing 24 years of his father’s work. To get back at Gekko, Bud, with his father’s help, formulates a plan to force Gekko to sell all the company’s stock at once and to have Gekko’s competitor buy the company with the promise to keep the company intact. Gekko loses $75 million. Finally Bud’s insider trades catch up with him and the police arrest him. He agrees to help the investigators finger Gekko by secretly recording a confession tape.

Center stage in Wall Street belongs to Gordon Gekko’s intimidating world view of Greed. In their conversations, Gekko conveys to Bud that more money is always better and no one should ever settle for less. There is nothing valuable that cannot be bought, not even love. In a press conference held before all the stockholders of a paper-producing company, Gekko trumps all accusations of maliciously buying and selling stocks with his virtue of Greed. He explains that cutting salaries and management will save money for the company. Greed will save this company and Greed will save this country! Greed, it seems, is Gekko’s ultimate value.

The two movies, then, Boiler Room and Wall Street, have altogether too much in common. Both use the world of stock trading in New York as a venue to tell tales of father and son. Both incorporate iconic characters who minimize morality and personal relationships in the name of gaining wealth, and in both, they flaunt its benefits. Both end with the misled youth consciously, resolutely accepting a future of judgment.

Why did the writer/director of Boiler Room make this movie? Why remake a classic if both Michael Douglass and Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen are still alive and making movies? Why should a movie reference the film from whom its messages are borrowed?

Is there no different message? Was Boiler Room merely a good story that deserved to be told?

Do stories necessarily have messages?