{"id":164164,"date":"2017-01-23T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=164164"},"modified":"2016-11-30T14:07:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T21:07:11","slug":"gold-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2017\/01\/23\/gold-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Gold Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOLD<\/a><\/strong>
\nTWC-Dimension<\/strong>
\nReviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya<\/strong>
\nGrade: B<\/strong>
\nDirector:\u00a0 Stephen Gaghan<\/strong>
\nWritten by: Stephen Gaghan, Patrick Massett, John Zinman<\/strong>
\nCast: Matthew McConaughey<\/a>, Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard<\/a>, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Rachael Taylor<\/strong>
\nScreened at: Review 1, NYC, 11\/20\/16<\/strong>
\nOpens: January 27, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tagline for \u201cGold\u201d is this: \u201cIt was never about the money.\u201d As you begin to watch Stephen Gaghan\u2019s latest offering (Gaghan is well known for directing \u201cSyriana\u201d about a merger of two American oil companies and \u201cTraffic\u201d wherein a conservative judge finds that his daughter is a crack addict), you may wonder how that line could be justified.\u00a0 After all the principal character, Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey), has trampled his father\u2019s business into the ground, is sorely in need of cash, and has traveled to Indonesia, risking malaria and assassination by their military in search of prosperity for his new company.\u00a0 The answer comes out later in the story, after he may be the recipient of a substantial sum, say, three hundred million dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cGold\u201d may be considered this year\u2019s \u201cThe Wolf of Wall Street,\u201d the action taking place in a New York boardroom involving underwriters who are asked to risk large sums to capitalize an infant industry.\u00a0 Kenny Wells, who already suffers from losing the business for which his father had worked for a lifetime, gets a bright idea.\u00a0 Why not team up with a geologist, Michael Acosta (\u00c9dgar Ramirez), and go to the Indonesian rain forest to dig for gold?\u00a0 Based on Acosta\u2019s counsel, they mine the region, hiring bands of local people to cut down the trees to prepare for the operation.\u00a0 Of course they strike it rich, or there wouldn\u2019t be much of a story.\u00a0 But what happens to Wells, his relationship with Acosta and with his stunning wife Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard) and with major underwriter Corey Stoll (Brian Woolf), evokes a complexity that surprises everyone.\u00a0 In one of the year\u2019s most ironic endings, a final minute of the two-hour film that could have the audience gasping, \u201cGold\u201d closes on a note that you\u2019d not see coming.<\/p>\n

The story is generic enough, one that does not ignite like Martin Scorsese\u2019s \u201cThe Wolf of Wall Street.\u201d\u00a0 This is surprising considering that director Gaghan films in an exotic rain forest of Thailand, standing in for Indonesia.\u00a0 The clout comes instead from the two performances, particularly the key one by McConaughey, who is seen at first looking like the metrosexual advertiser for luxury products but who, when the script continues seven years, later finds him ageing with a largely shaved head.\u00a0 His eyes reflect the passion of a man, a fanatic really, utterly consumed by the American dream of making something of himself big time\u2014as the CEO of a mining company.\u00a0 There are the usual women, in this case his wife Kay but also a journalist (Rachael Taylor) who flirts with him in front of his wife.<\/p>\n

\u00c9dgar Ramirez co-stars with his sexy Venezuelan accent, giving the role of geologist a certain glamor as he senses the gold spot in Indonesia that would make him and his companion rich.\u00a0 Brian Wolf (Corey Stoll) emerges as the underwriter who would transform the yellow metal into greenbacks with FBI Agent Jennings (Toby Kebbell) looking into the potential for the kind of foul play that would make Bernie Madoff envious.<\/p>\n

\u201cGold,\u201d clearly pushing Matthew McConaughey as a potential Oscar candidate, was filmed in Bangkok, Sura Thani (a gorgeous location that is also the gateway to Indonesia\u2019s many islands), Albuquerque, Reno and New York City.<\/p>\n

Rated R.\u00a0 120 minutes.\u00a0 \u00a9 Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online<\/strong><\/p>\n

Story \u2013 B-<\/strong>
\nActing \u2013 B<\/strong>
\nTechnical \u2013 B+<\/strong>
\nOverall – B<\/strong><\/p>\n

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