Let’s start with McConaughey fans:
Go see this movie. You get a big, thick dose of the maverick actor’s bravado and he’s as entertaining as always. He constantly guzzles Seagram’s and has grown a proper potbelly. He has a semi-distracting headpiece glued to his melon to create the illusion of a wonderfully balding cranium. While most all falls apart around him, McConaughey does his best.
But in the hands of director Stephen Gaghan, the McConaughey magic gets a little lost. The plot is an interesting true story with plenty of twists and turns. All the parts are there and on paper, you had a contender. In fact, the original release date for Gold was supposed to be Christmas Day; a prime spot for Awards contenders but it was moved once the finished product was witnessed by Studio Brass.
Gaghan is actually a writer first and foremost and his shortcomings as a director are made apparent with a mishandling of just about everything you see on the screen. There is no tension, no need to care for our characters. As the plot unfolds, it does so lazily.
Bryce Dallas Howard, an actor who usually can do the good, is reduced to a cardboard cutout of a hapless lover. She spends much of the movie wandering around, bright eyed and dazed by the events around her. Not a natural moment to be found with her and I blame Gaghan for allowing her to walk around the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, wide eyed and mouth agape staring at the walls around her like she’s never been in a big room before.
I assure there was a good movie in here. Kenny Wells journey was a worthy story to tell. Unfortunately the storyteller failed in the telling.