Essentially, 'Gold' is an old fashioned adventure movie. A hostile environment, changing fortunes, shifting alliances, unexpected adversaries, a seemingly betrayed friendship: it's all there. But the setting is out of the ordinary: it's the financial world with millions of dollars pumped into promising mining stocks. But those millions can just as quickly be withdrawn when the prospects change.
The adventurer in the midst of it all is Kenny Wells, son of a Nevada gold prospector and heir to an almost bankrupt mining company. In an all-or-nothing attempt, he travels to Indonesia for a meeting with a legendary drilling expert. The next step is to find the money required for the drilling. What follows, is a roller-coaster ride of successes and setbacks.
Matthew McConaughey is amazing as Kenny Wells, a raving maniac with a fearless can-do mentality and a complete lack of respect for Wall Street hotshots or mining moguls. This is one of his best roles ever, and it's worth an Oscar. You can see the doubt in the eyes of everyone he meets: is this a madman who doesn't know what he's up to, or a go-getter who doesn't give up until he reaches his goal? Wells is both, and McConaughey makes his complex character completely believable.
There are some extra layers in the story underlining this complexity: the relationship with his wife Kay, and the friendship with his business partner Mike Acosta. The latter is responsible for the spectacular ending of the story, with a really nice surprise in the last seconds.
The whole story is based on the Bre-X scandal, which hit the worldwide headlines in the nineties. Some details are changed, but on the whole the story follows the real events pretty accurate. The scandal was a prime example of excessive capitalist greed, and the film is a nice reminder of it.
