Gold review

Gold is the story of a down-on-his-luck man (Matthew McConaughey) who travels to Indonesia in search of gold and wealth.

Gold is an interesting story told in an uninteresting way. The original story has had its time, setting and characters changed, so it is fine for details to be changed. However, that does not excuse it from not starting until the last quarter. The majority of the film is about Kenny Wells' rise, as he goes from broke to very rich. The problem is that Kenny is not someone who is enjoyable to be in the presence of for nearly 2 hours. This isn't because he becomes insufferable and unlikeable as his wealth grows, but he just is not interesting at all. The most interesting thing is that he is unfaithful, and he is otherwise completely uninteresting. The film would have been more interesting if it followed Edgar Ramírez's character, who is a lot more complex.

From now I will be talking in regards to how much is shown in the trailer. About halfway through it is shown that the narration from Wells is him in an interview with Toby Kebbel's FBI agent. At this point I thought 'Oh good, the main story is about to start.' Unfortunately the story point that brings in the FBI doesn't start until at least half an hour later. By that point I had given up on the film being interesting and I had turned my brain off and started to just go along with it.

It's directed by Oscar winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, but not written by him. It is possible that it would have been better if he had written it as well, and would have possibly made the story better. The reason the film has come to be also seems to be to get rewards. Matthew McConaughey is in almost every scene and I'm fairly certain that was by design to help him win a second Oscar. He does exactly the same as what Christian Bale did in American Hustle. After winning many awards for playing a role which he had to lose weight for, he takes on a role several years later where he has to gain weight and style a comb over. McConaughey hasn't been successful as Bale was three years ago, but that was certainly the attention. Because of this the rest of the actors, apart from Ramírez, are given nothing to do. There are even some characters who show up and then disappear a few scenes later. None of them have much of an impact on the plot, one character is there just to introduce false drama, and they are there just to increase the run time.

In short: Gold fails on its potential and instead of being engaging, meanders for 2 hours.