Gold

Year: 2016
Genre: Drama
Directed: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bill Camp, Joshua Harto, Timothy Simons, Graig T. Nelson, Macon Blair, Adam LeFevre, Frank Wood, Michael Landes, Rachael Taylor
Production: Black Bear Pictures

In many ways, Gold is very similar to the recently released The Founder. Both stories are about a singularly persistent fella who finds his fortunes on a hunch. Early on, a lot of plans are foiled by inflexible thinking, people live to rue the day they underestimated their opponent and our protagonist eventually changes and lost to the corruptible powers of fame and fortune. Yet the difference between the two films is while The Founder is clipped by problems of unfocused narrative, divergent themes and clumsy directing, Gold crashes and burns under the force of those same problems.

See what happens when you steal from someone else?

Gold tells the story of a scrappy Nevada prospecting firm privately owned through the years by three generations of gold hunters. After five years of running the place, CEO Kenny Wells (McConaughey), struggles to honor the name of his belated father (Nelson) and grandfather. Down on his luck, Wells pawns his girlfriend's (Howard) jewelry and makes buy-in calls from a local tavern to make ends meet. Then, in a whiskey induced haze, Wells has a vivid dream about a thicket of Indonesian jungle. He wakes up convinced he can find gold in them thar hills and recruits the only geologist (Ramirez) wily enough to chance an excavation. "The last card you turn over, is the only card that matters," says the mad-eyed Wells. And his last card just may be the biggest gold find of all time.

Gold! GOLD!!!

Much of the film's charm relies on McConaughey's bravura performance as the bumpkin-like Kenny. Bearing false teeth, a beer gut and a bald patch, Kenny completely lacks the physical or professional attributes needed to stratify the American class system. "It's like a raccoons got a hold of the Hope Diamond," says Corey Stoll's investment banker character. A metaphor that describes not only the conflict between Kenny and the powers that be but McConaughey and this movie.

The movie in this case is the raccoon, which has no idea what it's doing with such a committed performance. It uneasily treads the plotting of a rags-to-riches story then loses itself in second-rate heist movie entanglements and airless buddy comedy cliches. All the while it keeps darting up through the tall grass waiting for audiences to respond with the same gasps they would be uttering if they were watching, say, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Yeah sorry movie, comparing you to the Humphrey Bogart staple is like comparing Citizen Kane (1941) to Other People's Money (1991). The narrative is so disjointed, the themes mined of all substance and the supporting characters feel robbed of any defining characteristics. Meanwhile the cinematography, while decent in parts, can't find a unifying tone let alone real human character amid lush jungle and McConaughey's bilious scenery chewing.

It's all so morally convoluted as well. The film tries to setup Kenny as a working-class hero while simultaneously building itself as a movie against accumulating wealth for wealth's sake. Kenny takes great strides to elevate his profession; waxing poetically about the nobility of gold prospecting as if it were a quasi-religious affirmation. His fidelity to those he works with, his family's legacy, not to mention the movie's constant willingness to portray him as an underdog, all point to a character worth rooting for. Yet I ask, how honorable is such a character when, within the context of the movie, all his decisions are made for the purpose of ego and saving face?

It becomes even more disgusting when you consider everything in the context of history. The real story of Bre-X Minerals (based in Calgary, Canada not Reno), is one of unsurpassed fraud. Fraud that resulted in billions of dollars lost including the pilfering of several public pension funds and retirement boards. The real life owners of Bre-X (for which Kenny is a composite) all claimed their innocence at the time despite finding refuge in The Bahamas and The Caymans respectively.

As a story of rags-to-riches, a story of fraud and a story based on real events, Gold all but fails to live up to its name. It is instead, a hollow, boring and long movie that leans heavily on McConaughey's hooting and hollering to carry it through to the end. My advice: if you want to see a better McConaughey performance that gives complex real-life events a simplistic but satisfying narrative - watch Dallas Buyers Club (2013) instead.

Final Grade: D