Gold (2016)

Genres

Adventure, Drama

Director

Stephen Gaghan

Country

USA

Cast

Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Joshua Harto, Timothy Simons, Michael Landes, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, Bill Camp, Rachael Taylor, Macon Blair, Bhavesh Patel

Storyline

Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey) teams up with a geologist (Edgar Ramirez) and sets off on a journey to find gold in the Indonesian jungle.

Opinion

Not even a month ago I saw the trailer and it gave me the impression Gold was going to be like The Wolf of Wall Street, which I did like. In spite of that, I still gave it a chance because there's Matthew McCaaughey, and, like him or not, he's a great actor. And he pretty much was the only good thing about the film.

The problem with Gold is that is completely uninspired and uninvolving. Not to mention the lack of originality. I watched the entire film with a dejavù feeling because everything about it reminded me of American Hustle. Although it really presents itself as a lighter and cheaper version of Scorsese's film, it's nothing but a copy of O'Russell's movie, starting from the main character, Kenny Wells, who looks too much like Cristian Bale's Irving Rosenfeld and isn't very likeable.

The story had some potential - it could have been interesting still not very inspirational -, but Stephen Gaghan flushed it down the toilet and decided to make a dull, slow-paced, unfocused and unbalanced film instead, a film that one minute tries to be the drama of the year and the next one tries to be the comedy of the year. And that, unfortunately, doesn't work in either case. At times, however, it manages to be entertaining.

In this mess of a film, there's someone who still does his best, Matthew McConaughey. Once again very committed to the role, he gives another great perfomrance and basically carries the film. Unfortunately, his performance alone isn't enough to save the film. And as if everything else wasn't enough, the supporting cast is also wasted, especially Bryce Dallas Howard who is nothing more than a love interest.