Movie Review: Gold

Well, that was fast. It took just two years for Matthew McConaughey to go from feted thespian to hulking, heavy-breathing caricature. Take that, Al Pacino and Marlon Brando!

Just like late-period Pacino and Brando, McConaughey remains supremely watchable, even when careening off the rails of common performative sense.

In fact, his over-the-top performance might be precisely what drags Stephen Gaghan’s Gold over the two-hour finish line.

In it, he plays ‘80s guy Kenny Wells, a brassy, straight-shooting “prospector” who happens upon the find of the decade with the help of geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) in deepest Borneo. Leaving Acosta to mine the gold, he returns to Reno, Nevada, and eventually Wall Street, to recruit investors for their billion-dollar deal, giving McConaughey plenty of opportunity to sweatily yell across boardrooms in ill-fitting suits, tie askew, hairline receded.

Credit where its due, he throws himself whole-heartedly into the role, expanded waistline and all. However, it’s undeniable that cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood, Good Night and Good Luck) has certainly pointed his camera at more attractive things.

There’s more to the story, of course, but also a little less too. As the opening credits inform us, Gold is “inspired by true events”; only, all the names have been changed. (Google “Bre-X” for real-life spoilers.) Likely invigorated by the ability to take further liberties with an already larger-than-life tale, the screenplay credited to Patrick Massett and John Zinman revels in plenty of the genre’s many clichés. Champagne flows; wealth corrupts; tumblers are angrily thrown at walls upon news of betrayal. It’s a miracle The O’ Jays’ “For The Love Of Money” doesn’t make an appearance.

Director Gaghan has wound up making a more staid, less interrogative version of The Wolf of Wall Street (down to the inclusion of another blonde Aussie bombshell in Rachel Taylor), or a minor, not-so formally adventurous tribute to Werner Herzog’s hubristic Fitzcarraldo.

Much of it rests on the star, McConaughey, who, in fairness, hadn’t thus far been steered wrong by going big before. This soon after the McConaissance, prior to which he starred exclusively in tired rom-coms and failed adventure flicks, it feels strange to criticise him for trying too hard.

Nonetheless, despite Gold’s bold ambitions to comment on the human nature of greed and pride (and its murky intersection), Gaghan’s over-long, derivative feature fails to justify its excavation.

Appealing supporting cast aside—including Bryce Dallas Howard and Corey Stoll—Gold can’t sit on the shelf alongside the McConaissance’s must-see entries: The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, Killer Joe, Mud and Bernie.

But don’t close the book on him just yet. Imagine what the Matthew McConaughey ten years from now might still be able to achieve.

2.5/5

In cinemas February 2, 2017. Rated M for coarse language.

Photo: TWC