Gold’s exploration of greed and betrayal delves into weighty matters of striving and success but comes up short in creating a story with much empathy or drive.
Matthew McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, a modern-day prospector from a family of metal chasers. Instead of enjoying the same success as his father, Wells finds himself in a depressed market and in an even more depressed state. He’s a pedal-to-the-metal guy, always chasing the next thing, and dogged in his determination convince investors to back him in his latest fruitless venture.
It is right when he’s at his rock bottom that he takes a big risk and moves his machinations across the Pacific to Indonesia and geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramírez). The two begin a quest for–what else?–gold! After much anguish, including a worker revolt and Wells contracting malaria, all of their wildest dreams come true.
From here the story takes a turn into late-eighties capitalism. Corey Stoll plays a Milken-esque Wall Streeter who wants to take the work of a couple of rubes and turn it into big, big business. All the while, Wells’s heart-of-gold girlfriend Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard) stands by his side as long as she can.
When push comes to shove, things start to fall apart, and Wells has to grapple not just with unfathomable success but also with equally extreme failure. Throughout the film, Wells is being interviewed in a flash forward by the FBI, so the audience knows this whole thing won’t end well.
The final act throws in some decent twists and turns, and the story itself is engaging enough. The problem is that it never quite wrangles all of its constituent parts into something great. Too much of the movie’s humor trades off of uber-hunk McConaughey being made up as a paunchy, balding doof. Howard is sweet as can be, and her performance would be memorable in another film, and not just for the magnificent Reagan-era big hair she pulls off. The gravitas Ramírez brings to the screen is admirable but doesn’t click with the other pieces of this puzzle.
Gold is not a bad movie, but given the subject matter, actors, and time period (the 1988-era soundtrack is fantastic), it should have accomplished more. McConaughey can shoulder much of a movie’s payload by himself, but it’s not enough, and in the case of Gold, it all never quite shines.