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Created Jun 17, 2018 10:19AM PST • Edited Dec 09, 2018 12:55AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Matthew McConaughey rode the tiger (yet again) in the under-titled Gold, the truthy tale of a hard-living, third-gen miner who never ever gives up hope. This Weinstein Company release revels in peeping at the rise, fall, rise and fall of a quasi-rapacious capitalist kook. From the Left, revenge is a dish best served gold.

   It’s a wild ride that’s fully engrossing, not least because of McConaughey’s mesmeric turn as a legacy mining entrepreneur who’s less chip-off-the-old-block than flake-off-the-overextended-chip. He’s a functional alcoholic, a heavy alcoholic, but that hardly slows him down. Yep, quintessential McConaughey.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Matthew McConaughey plays a classic Matthew McConaughey role as a reckless and indefatigable entrepreneur. Nic Cage must not’ve been available, or for that matter Christian Bale, as the role required McConaughey to appear paunchy and balding, rather like Bale in America Hustle.

   His supporting cast is more 14-carat than pure gold, but there are several shiny nuggets.

   • Édgar Ramírez hardly jumps offscreen as a Filipino geologist who leads McConaughey to an enormous gold strike.
   • Bryce Dallas Howard does jump offscreen as McConaughey’s waitress-wife.
   • Corey Stoll is strong as a New York investment banker.
   • Toby Kebbell underwhelms as an FBI agent on McConaughey’s tail.
   • Bruce Greenwood is never less than compelling, here as a major domo of the mining industry.
   • Stacy Keach does little more than cameo as a mining industry elder statesmen.
   • Rachael Taylor jumps offscreen as a sexually aggressive industry player.
   • Craig T. Nelson cameos as McConaughey’s father.
   • Jirayu Tantrakul is appropriately callow and cavalier as the son of Indonesian dictator Suharto.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

   McConaughey

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Gold is a classic Weinstein film, even with only one starlet role. The Left loves rapacious capitalists.

    Musically, the Talking Heads cover is especially well chosen, being an Eighties & Nineties period piece.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Really Great 4.5

    Kishi Bashi covers This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody), well.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.4

17. Sex Titillating 1.9

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Profane 2.9

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    SPOILER ALERT: The breathtaking Bre-X Mining Fraud gets revivified in Gold, an undertitled gem of a Mathew McConaughey movie. McConaughey’s character is based on Bre-X CEO David Walsh.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.2

23. Biological Glib 1.2

24. Physical Natural 1.0