Gold channels Wolf Of Wall Street in so many ways, from the actors, plot, and themes that it's hard to see it as anything other than an imitation. McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, a prospector who's seen his family mining business collapse around him. He bets his last dollar on the theory of an equally down on his luck geologist (Edgar Ramirez) that somewhere in Indonesia, there's new people and resources to be exploited gold.
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| We call our industry 'the industry' because we think we are better than everyone else. |
A familiar story is told: fall, bottoming out, rise, struggle, rise. McConaughey & Ramirez put in solid turns despite this. Wells and Belfort share in their unfettered greed but there's no physical humour, or chest-beating lunch scene to soften the miner's rough edges.
Throughout, there's a sense amongst everyone involved that's usually reserved for Hollywood's films about itself: that somehow their jobs are no mere jobs, they're answering the call of the Earth itself, and the scene with Wells' acceptance speech for the "Golden Pickaxe" from the National Prospectors Association is a fittingly absurd ending.
