A taut, focused, and surprisingly potent thriller. It also features a terrific Zac Efron performance that gives long-time naysayers like me a chance to rethink our past feelings on the 34-year-old actor.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2022

... This film is occasionally artful, but mostly mirthless and ugly and hopeless.

| Jul 14, 2022

Zac Efron more than carries this effective post-apocalyptic 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' set in the Australian outback.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 28, 2022

Never more than the sum of its parts, but those parts always do what they're meant to — and glitter as brightly as they need to.

| Jun 25, 2022

The tension is shallow and flat, only contributing to more frustrations with such a banal narrative.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Jun 8, 2022

Gritty and minimalist, Gold is a desert survival story with an ending that could've been better, but the movie's lead performance by Zac Efron is compelling enough to maintain viewer interest.

| Apr 22, 2022

Even with Hayes bag of directing tricks, and with Efrons go-for-broke performance, theres no covering up the barebones state of the screenplay.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 17, 2022

In short, its hard to tell if Efrons acting carries "Gold" because its narrative is so stripped-down. As a movie, things play out as an obvious parable about the greed that grips mens hearts once civilizations fires die out.

| Original Score: C- | Apr 16, 2022

Stretches [Efron's] range and physical endurance far beyond anything his fans ever dreamed of.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 31, 2022

It's really a little too threadbare and derivative for its own good.

| Mar 30, 2022

Gold doesnt have a lot of cards to play story-wise, but it handles them well.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 24, 2022

Gold should intrigue Zac Efron fans, and rightly so. Hes very good here and almost single-handedly saves the film.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 23, 2022

Efron's dystopian fable is something of a treasure: Its message is delivered with such visual impact that you'll never be able to scrub it from your memory.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 21, 2022

Look, I dont know that any of us would have anticipated Zac Efron starring in a low-budget Australian hybrid of Cast Away and The Road Warrior. Even fewer of us would have anticipated that it would be good. Quite good, actually. But here we are.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2022

Often anemic, tedious and monotonous despite Zac Efron's raw performance.

| Mar 18, 2022

Directed and co-written by Anthony Hayes, Zac Efron’s latest film reminds us that nature usually wins in man’s attempt to dominate it.

| Mar 17, 2022

When your two main characters are named in the credits as Man One and Man Two, you may get a sneaking suspicion that the story you've just seen is something of a metaphor.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 16, 2022

Minimalist post-apocalyptic films are their own subgenre but Gold is just a good movie. Hayes' vision is exquisite & Efron's on a higher acting plane.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 15, 2022

Driven by a career-best Zac Efron performance, Gold is an effective if unremarkable survival thriller.

| Original Score: 6.5/10 | Mar 14, 2022

In a dry, dusty, desperate landscape, Zac Efron goes full grunge, effectively underplaying physical and psychological implosion. But theres nothing unexpected in this brutal open-air chamber piece.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 13, 2022