Hollywood is infamous for depicting businessmen, especially Wall Street brokers as unprincipled predators. Wall Street, The Big Short, and The Wolf of Wall Street are merely three examples of many that could be given.
Therefore, it is refreshing to come across films in which profit-driven business is portrayed as benign and/or that show businessmen as heroes. Although such films are rare, they do exist and are often quite entertaining.
A Most Violent Year
A relatively recent example was J.C. Chandor’s 2014 crime drama, A Most Violent Year, starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.
Abel Morales runs his own company in Queens, New York, in the notoriously corrupt fuel oil business. He bought the firm from his wife Anna’s family, who are gangsters, but he is determined to run it as a legitimate business. The politically ambitious D.A., Lawrence, says he is determined to expose corruption in the industry but is actually more intent on gathering favorable publicity for himself. Lawrence has a flimsy case against Morales but fighting it is time consuming and expensive. At the same time, Morales places a sizeable down payment for a depot on the East River with Orthodox Jewish businessman Joseph Mendelsohn; he has thirty days to pay the full price or forfeit the down payment. Further, Morales’ trucks are being hijacked but, against pressure, he refuses to arm his drivers because he wants no element of the gangster life. Nevertheless, one of his drivers arms himself and gets into a public shootout with hijackers. His bankers, because of Lawrence’s legal case and the publicized gunplay, refuse to finance his loan. Another truck is hijacked; he captures the criminal, discovers where he sells the oil, confronts a competitor with facilities in that neighborhood, the competitor pays him, but he is still short of the money he needs. He is running out of time to pay Mendelsohn. Another competitor, with connections to Mafia loan sharks, offers to give him the loan but he refuses all ties to gangsters.
How does this upright businessman raise the money honestly to finance his loan? How does he deal with the trumped up case of the corrupt DA? Can honesty triumph in a field of gangsters and shady politicians? These actions form the climax of the story.
The Edge
A very different example of a heroic businessman was presented in Lee Tamahori’s 1997 adventure film, The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.
Charles Morse is a billionaire businessman and a brilliant mind who has an extraordinary depth of theoretical knowledge that, so far, lacks practical application. Bob Green is a photographer who is having an affair with Charles’s beautiful wife. They are in the wilds of Alaska on a photo shoot. Early on, they are confronted by the riddle: “Why is the rabbit unafraid of the panther?” Charles knows the answer: “Because the rabbit is smarter than the panther.” Their plane crashes in a lake amidst deep forest lands ; they survive but are lost. They have no practical knowledge of survival in the wilderness, and initially, wander in circles. They are stalked by a giant Kodiak bear who devours Bob’s assistant and seeks to eat them, too. Additionally, Bob plans to murder Charles and take his wife.
Can Charles transform his immense theoretical knowledge into practical value? Can he kill the bear, thwart Bob’s murderous efforts, and find his way out of the wilderness? There are powerful obstacles confronting him—but he is smarter than his antagonists, and this gives meaning to the film’s title: he has the edge. The film’s climax provides the answer to these questions.
Executive Suite
Robert Wise’s 1954 film Executive Suite stars William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, and an all-star cast.
The President of the Tredway Furniture Company unexpectedly dies without having appointed a successor. Loren Shaw, the company controller, strongly desires the job. He is an honest man, dedicated to the company, and is a financial whiz. He is a numbers guy and his primary concern is to maximize the company’s profit for its shareholders. But Don Walling, the company’s vice-president for design and development, has a different vision for the firm. He acknowledges that the inexpensive and profitable product line endorsed by Shaw is honestly marketed to customers who know what they are getting; but he insists that such flimsy furniture does not represent the company’s best effort. Tredway can innovate, it can use new methods to create superior furniture at prices affordable to customers. The company will produce outstanding merchandise, it will grow and profit, and everyone working there will take greater pride in their products. When the Tredway Board convenes to elect a new president, he gives them an impassioned speech to this effect. Can Walling’s vision of long-term growth via masterful innovation triumph over Shaw’s narrower, short-term approach? The board’s election decides that.
Other People’s Money
Perhaps the most intriguing presentation of heroic businessmen is in Norman Jewison’s dramedy, Other People’s Money, starring Danny DeVito, Penelope Ann Miller, and Gregory Peck.
DeVito plays Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield, a fast-talking, wheeling-dealing, seemingly heartless Wall Street “corporate raider”. He has become wealthy via buying companies and selling their assets for profits. He is determined to take over the New England Wire and Cable Company, a family-owned business, headed by Andrew Jorgensen , a genuinely benign man who cares deeply about his company, his products, his employees, and his town. He is an ethically upright businessman always concerned to do the right thing. He fights Garfield’s hostile takeover. Jorgensen’s step-daughter, Kate Sullivan, is a brilliant lawyer who develops strategies to resist Garfield; both Kate and Garfield are tough customers and they develop a genuine attraction.
Secretly, Jorgensen’s wife offers Garfield her life savings for him to drop the takeover attempt. He refuses, stating the seemingly paradoxical lines: “I don’t take money from widows or orphans. I make money for them.” What does the “heartless” Garfield mean by this? His meaning is revealed at the yearly shareholder meeting, where a vote will decide who runs the company. Jorgensen gives an honest, impassioned speech about loyalty, and ethical dealings, and treating everyone fairly. Garfield states that the company is dying and cannot be saved, that fiber optics is destroying their market. He talks of horse and buggies and how the best buggy whip manufacturer was put out of business by the advent of automobiles. Shareholders can go with Jorgensen, he says; in a few years, the company will be bankrupt and they’ll have nothing. Or they can go with him, sell off the company’s assets, make a profit, invest it in new enterprises, produce valued commodities, create jobs, and make money.
Larry the Liquidator turns out to be the best friend the company shareholders and workers have! How do the shareholders decide? Their vote is the climax of the film.
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There are other pro-business movies. But these four are representative and entertaining examples of this genre that is all-too-rare but, hopefully, one that will grow in the coming years.
