For all the
talk of a McConaissance – that process by which Matthew McConaughey was saved
from nickel-and-dime romcoms and returned to the Hollywood big leagues – the
actor’s eye for a script has seemed erratic of late. True, he earned an Oscar
for 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club, and acclaim for his chameleonic work on TV’s
True Detective. Yet he struck out with last year’s Free State of Jones, a
true-life slavery story converted into painfully windy Oscar bait, and he’s
been snubbed again for his work on Gold
– though this new project at least allows him a modicum of fun, some of which
trickles down to the audience.
That
McConaughey was serious about returning to the podium can be seen in the
physical transformation he undergoes here. As independently minded prospector
Kenny Wells, the sometime Magic Mike heartthrob presents to us with a thinning
hairdo reminiscent of Little Britain’s Andy, a beer gut on a par with Christian
Bale’s in American Hustle, and an endlessly distracting snaggletooth. What
Stephen Gaghan’s film marvels at, beyond this conspicuous makeunder, is how
this unprepossessing schlub came to make a killing in the rainforests of
Indonesia, the last place anybody was looking at the back end of the 1980s.
There’s an
element of risk here comparable to Wells’ own gamble in going East to make his
fortune. Gaghan, the screenwriter of Traffic who turned director with 2005’s
Syriana, is betting on multiplex audiences becoming piqued and compelled by the
dry-sounding detail of international mining rights. Some of the spadework has
been done by that run of big-business stories that are presumably easier to
pitch now that Hollywood studios are owned by major conglomerates: Gold is the
adventure-movie variant of The Social Network, Moneyball or The Big Short,
making its biggest deals in the great outdoors.
McConaughey’s
charisma helps to get us on side and carry us along. The first half,
introducing Wells as another American dreamer, can seem uncritical: with
nothing in place to do for the titular element what There Will Be Blood did for
oil, our hero gets rich awfully quick. This, however, proves intentional, a
midfilm twist reconfiguring this story’s entire nature, while repositioning the
protagonist as the last of a dying breed. Put it this way: should the incoming
President demand a White House screening, he might start to shift uncomfortably
in his throne somewhere around the halfway mark.
For everybody
else, Gold will serve as a broadly watchable entertainment, gilded as it is
with choice period hits and supporting players capable of doing a lot with
those small sections of screen the star isn’t hungrily devouring. Edgar Ramirez
plays it cool as the Sancho Panza-like partner who kept his feet on the ground
as Wells’ head disappeared further into the clouds; the dependable Corey Stoll
and Bill Camp are the Gordon Gekko types Wells sorely regrets getting into bed
with; Bryce Dallas Howard radiates as Kay, the great love our guy lost the
minute he began treating her as a secretary.
Nobody’s
mining too deep: compared to the subtler dramatic accomplishments currently on
release, Gold looks to have been conceived as a platform for an enjoyably showy
central turn. (The scene in which McConaughey-as-Wells collects an industry
award might have been too blatant even for Academy voters.) Up until the last, Gaghan
seems unsure whether his subject deserves comeuppance or a reward – and
therefore whether the film entire is a cautionary tale or just a colourful
character study. Still, if you felt inclined to catch one of 2017’s Oscar
also-rans, this one wouldn’t be an entirely unworthy investment of time and
money.
Gold opens in cinemas nationwide today.
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