Review of Gold (2016) by Michael W — 28 Feb 2017

Stephen Gaghan has worked mostly behind the scenes as a screenwriter in his early days when he first hit LA with "I Know What You Did Last Summer." Since then, he has graced us with "Traffic" (screenwriter) and "Syriana" (screenwriter/director) as his only two "fresh" movies. Fast forward nearly 12 years, and he has all-star actor Matthew McConaughey under his wing with a story worthy of putting on the silver screen. It's just a shame what should be a shining bright nugget gets stuck in the mud without a sifter to help find its way to the light.

McConaughey puts in a fully committed performance as Kenny Wells. Too bad it goes to waste on a movie that doesn't quite hold your attention with the story as much as it does with his eccentric transformation.

It's a age-old classic of the American Dream, except instead of drugs and violence, we get Gold. Think a poor man's Wolf of Wallstreet and about an hour shorter. While Scorsese's movie dragged for hours with detail on even the most trivial of things, Gold doesn't give enough of it to accurately portray the full picture.

It's tough to watch a McConaughey movie and not be impressed by his acting, but it's another thing to watch a movie that so under utilizes his talents because the script is so light in all the right spots. Without the relationships, we have no one and nothing to pin our eye to.