Gold * * *

 I am a bit late reviewing this one as I was overseas when it was released.

   I don’t believe is going to be around much longer so I thought I’d better check it out today before it disappears altogether. There were three people in the cinema with me, so I guess that’ll be sooner rather than later.

To hell with gold Oscars.  This is real!

    Gold is a fascinating commodity.  If you think about it it's a fairly useless product - other than for decoration - and yet we attribute great value to it. Nations have been plundered for it, nations have been built on it, and to this day it is still the great counterbalance to the stock market.  It’s an obvious subject matter.

   I notice other reviews haven’t been positive but actually I liked it, even though it is hard to overlook it’s flaws.

    It stars Matthew McConaughey playing Ken Wells, a mining speculator. He owns a company that is worth less than 4c a share. He develops an obsession with the probability of a gold strike in Indonesia and strikes up a working relationship with a miner/explorer over there.  In the jungle they mine against terrible odds: malaria, workers going on strike, and finances running dry.  But eventually they get rich….. like filthy rich and ….his mining company goes from 4c to $70 per share as news of the enormity of the strike gets out.

   Then the greed starts (surprise surprise) but it’s not just his greed.   It all comes down to investment companies.

   Then the controversy starts: Is this strike all that it claims to be?  Needless to say the stock market does not like negative speculation.

    Then the chaos starts...

    This apparently is a true story (or based on true events).  

    McConaughey amazes us again with his extreme change of appearance. It is almost frightening the way he can be a wimp, a muscle guy: and in this film an overweight balding slob.      He plays Wells as a hustler and a risk taker but a man who is mostly honest.  Despite his alcoholism, his dishevelled appearance and his pig-headedness he evokes our sympathy.  

    Yet overall you can’t help but feel Gold is a lost opportunity.   This is a great story , but despite the sterling effort by McConaughey the unfolding story is not dynamic in its telling as it should be.     This won’t thrill you the way The Big Short did.

    In the end I felt it was a good story ineptly told.