Gold

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A modern-day prospector (1980s) strikes it rich in Indonesia, and along with a lot of money comes a lot of trouble…

This was movie #5 for the New Year’s Day Videofest (theme: Hollywood Goes Around the World) because A) a lot of it takes place in Indonesia and B) I wanted to see it in theaters and missed it.

Matthew McConaughey is one of my favorite actors, as well as being a Serious Honey. He has reinvented himself from romantic lead in romcoms to a lot of varied and interesting movie roles, and is very very good at them.

This one was no exception. Here he is the 3rd generation owner of a family mining company that is going down the tubes and he is desperate to make that one big strike…with the help of a South American playboy/prospector he does, only to run into trouble from the IRS, the Indonesian government, and Wall Street investors.

This movie is loosely based on real events but they change a lot of the later ones, including the ending. Having said that, this was interesting, exciting, and well-written. McConaughey (aka Mr. Dimples) is awesome as a desperate wheeler-dealer caught up in his own story and devastated when things go south. Bryce Dallas Howard is also excellent as his love interest, and Edgar Ramirez as the gold-finder are good as well.

A good roller-coaster of a movie, with an ending that is not easy to predict.