Playing out like Oliver Stone's Wall Street lite - or even the more recent Wolf of Wolf Street, but with a less attractive looking leading man - Gold is a golden (pun very much intended) opportunity for Matthew McConaughey to shine brightly in a movie that somehow drags everywhere its charismatic star doesn't. McConaughey, his shiny good looks and chiseled body completely stripped of their elegance, here gains plenty of weight and smokes shitloads (there isn't a seen in the movie where he's not drinking a whiskey or inhaling a cigarette) as Kenny Wells, a 1980s Nevada prospector who strikes it big with his business partner Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) when both discover a rich gold mine in Indonesia. Now, other than his sincere love and affection for his girlfriend Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard), there really isn't much depth to Kenny, who remains just a fat man with dreams larger than his businessman talents, and who is a constant drunk, first and foremost. Had director Stephen Gaghan focused more on Kenny's friendship with Michael, then perhaps the final shot would've had more of an impact on its viewers, and the movie might've actually been about something. As constructed, Gold is pretty much two hours of a disgusting, slimy, bald man drinking himself to death, with a lot of jumping-for-joy and disappointed-expression-frowns by its characters sprinkled throughout.
C
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