Prospecting is an odd form of greed, isn’t it? I mean, it’s definitely on the family tree of Get-Rich-Quick schemes, and yet, compared to say, Old Man Gambling (married to Lady Luck, of course), the family’s patriarch, it’s like a third-cousin-twice-removed kind of thing. Even at a bare minimum, digging for Gold will require travel, equipment, time, patience, and labor. You may as well be an archaeologist at that rate.
Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey) – “Wells” is a great name for a guy who digs up earth, huh?- had a dream. Literally. He went to sleep one night a dreamed that he would find Gold in the wilds of Indonesia. The details are kind of unclear here; do you have any idea how large and complicated Indonesia is? No? Nor do I. I just know it has a population nearly that of the United States spread out over hundreds of islands. I imagine getting to any wilds is a three-day trip minimum from the U.S. And this tale predates cellphones and satellite radios.
Gold the movie presented this “dream” as unique and unprecedented, but Kenny spent the previous seven years running his father’s formerly successful mining speculation company into the recently dug ground. There’s no way he hadn’t had the “Gold dream” before. No matter. Gold laid pretty thick the toll taken on Kenny. Seven years previous, the man looked ok …now? Well(s), you’re not gonna find a ton of situations that can be improved with a toupee. Lawdy, McConaughey-hey-hey looked better at death’s door in Dallas Buyers Club. Out of luck and money, Kenny pawns his wife’s engagement watch and barters his way to Indonesia, land of forest, mud, and Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramírez), the local Indiana Jones. A geologist as opposed to simply a treasure hunter, Acosta years earlier had to give up on his own dream of opening up the “Ring of Fire” – an Indonesian geological formation he believed so rich in treasure it was guarded by a dragon named Smaug. This was all speculation, of course. Do komodo dragons count?
The joy to Gold is not the discovery, which was kind of disturbing – imagine combover beergut McConaughey in BVDs rousing himself from a malaria funk to celebrate 
one-on-one. :shudder: The joy is the aftermath exploration of the first deadly sin. There’s a bit more to avarice than I gave it credit for, and Wells has us –almost- believing his sin is pride when he turns down a huge payday. Have we ranked deadly sins? Are there some better than others? How about commandments? Surely, killing is a bigger deal than stealing. I suppose that’s another movie.
It’s hard to sympathize with the Golden horde. Our hero is basically a good guy, but none of his motives have an ounce of purity and he’s pretty lousy to a supporting wife, Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard). After that, the cast gets worse. We can understand all of the players involved; we can even feel for them, but if you parented anybody in this film, you’d sit them down at some point and lecture them on making better choices.
♪Need to get up off the ground (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Dignity it can’t be found (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Indonesia’s where there’s G-g-gold (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Easy as my soul it’s sold (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Why don’t you let me fade away (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Die out in jungle today (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
I’m not big on information (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation)
Just talkin’ ‘bout my degradation (Talkin’ ‘bout my degradation) ♫
Rated R, 121 Minutes
D: Stephen Gaghan
W: Patrick Massett, John Zinman
Genre: Gold!
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Goldfinger
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Silverfinger? Badfinger? Rollie Fingers?
♪ Parody inspired by “My Generation”
