Alright, alright, alright – we’ve got another Hollywood film coming up where a significant part of the action takes place in Indonesia. Although we’ve been burned before by stinkers like “Blackhat” and “Java Heat” (though the latter was at least hilarious in its horribleness) we’re hoping that the charismatic Matthew McConaughey will help make “Gold” a worthwhile watch.
As you can see from the trailer, McConaughey really committed to his schlubby character in the film, donning a bald wig and gaining nearly 50 pounds for the role.
In “Gold”, McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, a down-on-his-luck businessman who decides to go looking for gold deep in the jungles of Borneo with the help of a geologist played by Édgar Ramírez. There, they make a massive discovery that makes them fabulously wealthy but, of course, also get them into trouble with all sorts of greedy groups who want to get their hands on the gold, including the Indonesian government.
“Gold” is based on the true story of the Bre-X gold mine scandal, which took place in the 1990s. We don’t want to spoil the movie for anybody who wants to go into it fresh by recounting the whole story here, but if you’re interested we highly recommend you read this great article about the scandal from Atlas Obscura that details the whole ugly affair. As it involves greed, corruption and scandal in Indonesia in the 1990s, Suharto and his clan obviously play a role in the story, as does Freeport.
Unfortunately, it appears that filming on “Gold” took place in Thailand instead of Indonesia (boo) but we’re hoping they at least got a decent actor to play Suharto on the big screen.
“Gold” is set to hit US theaters on December 25 of this year.
