Gold

With Gold, the filmmakers forgot to ask one important question before the screenplay went in front of the cameras - Is this a story that's really worth telling?  This is a very uninvolving film that keeps us at a total distance from the hearts and minds of the characters who inhabit it.  We watch the events play out, but we're not connected in any real way, because the film itself is almost curiously devoid of emotion.

The sole thing that does grab out attention is Matthew McConaughey, and his physical transformation in order to play Kenny Wells, a real life prospector who hit on the biggest gold find of the decade in 1988, and then lost everything.  With his heavily receding hairline, pot belly and chain smoking mannerisms, McConaughey is virtually unrecognizable at times.  His performance is pretty good also.  But the thing is, there's nothing to connect us with the character or the performance.  We're just watching an actor who went through a physical change.  His performance never connects with us truly, and is never able to bring the character to life.  I found myself appreciating what McConaughey must have went through to portray this character, but that was about it.  I never reached the point where I felt like I had bonded with the performance or the character.

His portrayal of Kenny comes across almost as a street hustler, desperately trying to convince much wealthier people to invest with him, and occasionally pawning off what little he has left in order to scrape together whatever he needs.  He's in the precious metals game, and business is not going well.  Out of desperation, he flies off to Indonesia to meet with a geologist who specializes in tracking down the precious gold that Kenny deals with back home.  This is Mike Acosta (Edgar Ramirez), and although he is suspicious of Kenny based mostly on his sleazy appearance ("You look like you stole that suit you're wearing", he tells him.), the two eventually make a business deal.  After months of searching, the two do come upon what seems to be a massive gold deposit, instantly making Kenny into the toast of the precious metals game as well as the Stock Market.

Watching the film, I found myself wondering why they decided to focus on Kenny and not Mike, who comes across as a character who would make a more interesting movie.  Mike remains an enigma throughout, though, as we follow Kenny into the good life with posh hotel suites at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, where he welcomes his supportive girlfriend (an underused Bryce Dallas Howard) with hundreds of her favorite flowers.  Seeing Kenny in these lavish surroundings seems somewhat off, and indeed, even the people he's possibly going to be investing with don't take him all that seriously.  He's a low level schnook who's now suddenly at the top of the world, and everyone either wants to work with him, or take advantage of him with the hopes that he won't catch on.

We follow Kenny as he goes up, then comes crashing down, then goes back up, and finally comes crashing back down again thanks to some third act twists.  But the way that Gold handles this narrative is a bit strange.  For the first half of the film, we have Kenny narrating these events, supposedly to the audience.  But then, halfway through, there's a jarring scene where he is suddenly seated in a hotel room being interviewed by some FBI agents.  Turns out these are the people he's been talking too all along.  But there is no warning about this.  Of course, we do find out who these agents are eventually, as well as why he's being questioned by them.  But when it just suddenly happens, it's so out of the blue as to throw us out of the movie.  It comes without warning, and though we understand that this is obviously foreshadowing future events, it feels like lazy filmmaking.

Through all of this, I never felt any connection with what was happening up on the screen.  It's been competently made, and the performances are fine, but nothing resonates.  When it's over, the movie had all but faded from my mind for the most part.  As good as McConaughey is here, and as impressive his physical transformation is, it's not enough to make Gold into a compelling film.  It's simply a performance without a character to attach itself to.  This is also one of those movies that introduces a character, then keeps them off camera so long so that when they come back, I found myself kind of replaying events back in my head to try to remember where I saw that person previously.  There's simply not enough here to answer the basic question - Why did this film need to be made?

Gold is a movie with an identity crisis, ultimately.  It doesn't know if it wants to celebrate or shame its hero.  For a film that handles this tricky balance better, look no further than The Founder with Michael Keaton, which knew how to skirt the line between worship and critiquing.  This isn't an unwatchable mess by any means, but it never quite seems sure of itself at the same time.

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