Matthew McConaughey sure
loves to chase down the Gold, having
done so twice before in Sahara and Fool’s Gold.
With the first film to be directed by Stephen Gaghan in eleven years
(Syriana being his last), the Traffic screenwriter’s newest endeavor Gold is a rags-to-riches-to-rags again
treasure hunt story loosely based on the gold mining company Bre-X which
reportedly sat on the largest goldmine in world history before being exposed as
a fraud. Though based on true events,
this isn’t a direct adaptation beyond the premise, leaving ample room for
McConaughey to shave his head and act the Hell out of his role, somewhere
between his charismatic schtick and bordering on chewing up the scenery.
Gaghan’s film plays fast and
loose with the facts, changing the names and locations around but more or less
encapsulating the same saga with a few crowd pleasing elements tossed in to
round it out. The result is an average
kid cousin to the recently released The
Founder with a solid cast but only one performance by it’s lead actor that’s
worth watching. Everyone else including Craig
T. Nelson, Macon Blair, Stacy Keach and Bryce Dallas Howard get lost in the
shuffle. It doesn’t help that Edgar
Ramirez as McConaughey’s partner in crime more or less coasts on the same
stilted role he played in The Girl on the
Train.
Visually the film is of course
overqualified, shot by Paul Thomas Anderson’s longtime collaborator Robert
Elswit in 2.35:1 widescreen. Though the
film does have many moments of scenic beauty, recreating the Indonesian jungle
through various locations including New York, New Mexico and Thailand, this is
mostly driven by close-ups of McConaughey’s face. Much like Syriana,
the editing is all over the place and I have to believe some developing
character threads were left on the cutting room floor as a flirtatious financier
played by Rachael Taylor shares some sexy time in a hot tub before being
dropped from the film never to be seen again.
Gold
has
enough ingredients in it to make for a captivating excoriation of the American
Dream, as it were, but as is mostly left this critic feeling all but completely
disengaged. McConaughey, who should take
a break from doing these gold mining movies, is of course electrifying but he
can’t carry the film alone with the only other actor Ramirez doing little to
get out of McConaughey’s shadow. Another
friendly suggestion, if he’s listening, is for Stephen Gaghan to go back to
screenwriting and stay out of the director’s chair. Some people have the knack for writing good
stories while others are infinitely better at transposing said stories to the
cinematic medium. Between this and The Founder, you’re better off watching
Michael Keaton for two hours.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki