[Matthew McConaughey's] scenes in the jungle with dashing geologist Edgar Ramírez are much duller than those in the movie's latter half.

| Mar 26, 2020

Gaghan never catches you up in Wells's gold-fever dream, so the movie, like his plan, falls apart. His attempt to impose a mock-heroic template on the material, doesn't fit.

| Mar 8, 2018

Despite McConaughey's commitment to the role, his Kenny is more pathetic than sympathetic, which makes caring about him for two hours a difficult task.

| Mar 3, 2017

When the tricksy denouement hits, we're not sure if we've been hoodwinked, but we're happy to have been taken for a ride, nonetheless.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2017

The propulsive soundtrack choices create an energy, but it's a hollow, restless energy, which emphasises the emptiness of the story and the characters within.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 5, 2017

It's a good story and Gaghan tackles it with his usual flair for international intrigue and political chicanery.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2017

What follows is never less than diverting, beautifully acted, painful, wacky and usually unexpected.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 3, 2017

A film with serious acting, a true-story premise and nothing by way of charm, intrigue, dramatic tension, sympathetic characters or basic narrative momentum.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2017

It has its highly entertaining moments, and there is some fun to be had in McConaughey's madly over-zealous performance but it is derivative and there are so many storytelling impulses on the go that none has any hope of ever hitting home.

| Feb 3, 2017

Deluded-yet-indomitable, Kenny is just too familiar a figure and the absurdly upbeat twist ending is the final insult.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2017

It's a boilerplate American Dream story for sure, but at least its one where you don't actively wish the central character died in a chip pan fire. Which is something.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2017

McConaughey has zero bromantic chemistry with his co-star, Edgar Ramrez, who phones in a dull, blank performance.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 2, 2017

Gold is simply a dull chore steeped in strike-it-rich clichs, a flaccid tale of capitalist cat-and-mouse that shirks the opportunity to say anything remotely of interest.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 2, 2017

"This is the single hokeyest thing I ever heard in my life," says someone early in Gold. Stick around.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 2, 2017

Nothing you haven't seen done better elsewhere, this one's a missed opportunity. McConaughey's hard work is impressive, but that's the only message Gold is interested in conveying.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2017

Is it an anti-capitalist parable or a shaggy dog story? It is never clear what intentions lie behind Stephen Gaghan's new film, which only glitters very intermittently.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 1, 2017

The director is Stephen Gaghan, helming his first theatrical feature since 2005's 'Syriana,' and I have no idea what the wait was for if he was waiting for this.

| Jan 30, 2017

Torn between hard-hitting satire on the pitfalls of capitalism and goofy, upbeat we're-in-the-money clichs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 30, 2017

You feel weirdly uninvolved, and ever more unsurprised by the lurches of fate.

| Jan 30, 2017

Gold highlights the importance of character and story, and the simple fact that if you care enough about the character and are engaged in his or her journey, the movie can still work despite other problems.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 27, 2017