Gold - Review

Right after this film was over, I went across the street to a Boston Pizza. The waitress, after seeing me walk into the restaurant with a little popcorn left over, asks me what movie I saw. I said, "Gold". She then asked, "Oh, should I see it?" ... and I had no idea what to say. This is a perfect example of a film that is definitely watchable. There is nothing really bad or terrible in it, but there is nothing really good or exciting about it either. This story does remind me a lot of The Wolf of Wall Street, just because of the similarities of subject matter and time period. It tries to have some of those comedic moments like Wolf of Wall Street, but there they felt really out of place. There is a scene where Matthew McCoughaney pets a tiger, and it feels like a scene straight out of the hangover. It's like this film couldn't decide if it wanted to pull the comedy angle like The Wolf of Wall Street or even The Big Short, or the serious oscar bait film like American Hustle or something along those lines. Gold falls kind of flat in both respects. Maybe that's what made it feel so long. Matthew McCoughaney is a great actor and here he is very charismatic, but this whole movie I was thinking to myself, "Okay, he is going into this role thinking that this will win him another oscar and it is showing." I don't know how you can tell when an actor is "trying too hard", but he slips into that category sometimes, especially since this movie as a whole is just "okay". I'm glad I saw it, however, I have no plans to see it again.