MovieChat Forums > Trading Places (1983) Discussion > Were they any better than the Dukes?

Were they any better than the Dukes?


Yes, well of course they were better than those slime balls but they still gamed the system with inside information.

I know this is just a farce but Martha Stewart and others went to jail for less than this.

Thoughts???

(P.S. I love this movie and saw it when it first came out countless times. I just never thought of the other side of the coin here.)

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Well I look at it as one of those "You have to fight dirty against dirty people" moments.

Plus, what the Dukes did went beyond money. They calculatedly ruined every possible aspect of Louis' life and drove him to attempted suicide. You can argue anything Louis and Billy Ray end up doing to the Dukes pales in comparison!

"If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money."

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That's the movie though - getting revenge on the Dukes.

But what they did was insider trading for sure so they really should have gone to jail. Also other people were buying so it wasn't just the Dukes who copped it.

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But what they did was insider trading for sure so they really should have gone to jail. Also other people were buying so it wasn't just the Dukes who copped it.

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right. that was the one aspect. Duke's weren't the only ones who bit the dust.











Take your pinche color-coordinated sponsored chingada and take a flying fck

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After this thread I read that this was okay to do at the time and only recently this would be considered insider trading and what they call Eddie Murphy's Law (or something).

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they wanted revenge on the people who had made them suffer. The Duke brothers deliberately set out to ruin their lives, with no interest in what it might do to them. They were very wicked.

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[deleted]

It has since been mentioned elsewhere on this board, but "insider trading" wasn't illegal at the time this movie was made. Also, I don't think Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading, but for lying about it to the FBI.

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Isn't it a bit unrealistic that these powerful and super-wealthy Dukes would lose ALL their money on one deal gone wrong? As if they wouldn't have had more wealth somewhere, and as if they would ever put all their eggs in one basket, and so on.

They must have owned businesses, have lots of stock on different corporations, and other assets, properties and many forms of wealth that's not so easy to liquidate, that it's ludicrous that one bad deal could just completely destroy them financially.

But I guess that's how movies work..

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Also did the other stockbrokers suffer because of Louis and Billy Ray wanting to get back at the Dukes? If so I hope they didn't suffer nearly as bad as the Dukes did.

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What's the difference between insider trading and getting a tip on a horse? I'd like to know.

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That I'm not sure.

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