Review: Gold

So loosely based on true events as to be practically fictitious, Gold at least finds Matthew McConaughey relishing his role as the balding, snaggle-toothed, pot-bellied prospector who literally dreams of finding gold in Indonesia.

The real story involved a Filipino prospector named Michael de Guzman, who claimed to have discovered one of the largest gold deposits on record and eventually took the fall for the most famous gold mining scandal, which bankrupted the Canadian conglomerate Bre-X Minerals, Ltd. and lost its investors hundreds of millions of dollars. Screenwriters Patrick Massett and John Zinman emphasise the rise and fall of the American Dream aspects of the tale, not a bad decision in and of itself, but the final product is leeched of any vitality despite McConaughey's obvious investment in his portrayal of third-generation prospector Kenny Wells.

Transplanting the time and setting from early 1990s Calgary to late 1980s Reno, Nevada, the narrative initially finds Kenny at his lowest point. The economy is in recession, the family's mining company is barely keeping its head above water (Kenny and his reduced crew are running the business out of a local bar), Kenny's already lost his house and hustling like a bat out of hell to prevent losing the house he shares with steadfast girlfriend Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard), but everything's pointing to a losing battle. And then Kenny has a dream, a dream that compels him to scrape together what little money he has to travel to Indonesia to find Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramírez), a geologist famous for a huge copper strike in the country and infamous for a yet-to-be proven theory that there are untapped reserves of gold in a site he calls "the Ring of Fire."

Acosta is initially wary of Kenny, but he's won over by the American's can-do spirit and unshakeable belief that the gold is in them thar hills. So the two set off into the wilderness, Kenny contracts malaria and, several weeks later, the malaria clears and Kenny learns that he and Acosta have struck it rich. Their find attracts the attention of investment bankers such as Corey Stoll's Brian Woolf, who tolerates the brash huckster long enough to find a way to screw him over, and Stacy Keach's Clive Coleman, who had rejected Kenny when he was down and out. It's all easy street until it isn't.

The film possesses many weaknesses - Stephen Gaghan's limp direction, for one - but its most significant one is the disconnect between McConaughey and Ramírez. The men's bond is meant to run deeper than the quest that brought them together - "I went looking for gold and found a friend," as Kenny himself half-jokingly says - but there's no sense that their union is anything but a business partnership, which dulls the the power that's meant to emanate from the events in the third act of the film. Similarly, the relationship between Kenny and Kay is so underdeveloped that it is only by the grace of Howard's very fine portrayal that Kay's attempts to protect Kenny from his newfound temptations are as heartbreaking as they are.

Gold often feels like the very boring third cousin to more engaging fare like American Hustle (with Kenny resembling Christian Bale's character) and The Wolf of Wall Street (in which McConaughey so memorably cameoed). Gaghan seems uninterested or unwilling to have clear focus on the story he's aiming to tell - is it a morality tale, a crime story, a character study of a modern-day Willy Loman, or a satirical take on the American Dream where wealth is earned without putting in the work? Perhaps there was never a story to tell, perhaps Gold is nothing but a mere framework to house McConaughey's gung-ho performance. That's all well and good, but it isn't reason enough to sit endure the two hours of boredom that is Gold.

Gold

Directed by: Stephen Gaghan

Written by: Patrick Massett, John Zinman

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Joshua Harto, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Stacy Keach, Bruce Greenwood, Bill Camp, Timothy Simons