Film Review: Bre-X goes to Hollywood in ‘Gold’

The Bre-X Minerals scam was practically made for the big screen. In 1997 many surely felt like they were living something out of a movie when 200 million ounces of “gold” evaporated from the Busang project in Indonesia, along with billions of investors’ dollars and one Filipino geologist.

Ripe with drama, the famous fraud is littered with greed, deception, high stakes, boardroom battles, lawsuits, politics, a suspicious death and many lingering questions.

Now, 20 years after the it all unravelled, Hollywood has released its version of the infamous debacle: Gold.

In blockbuster form the story loses its Canadian connection, but remains true enough to the arc and spirit of the Bre-X case.

The film stars Matthew McConaughey as Kenny Wells (based on Bre-X founder David Walsh), who is a third-generation mining promoter in Nevada. He’s down on his luck in the late 1980s and desperate to live up to his family’s past success in the mining game.

The Academy Award winning actor  plays a sympathetic character, with crooked teeth, a bald head and a few extra pounds. In good times and bad, Wells is rarely seen without a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Inspired by a dream of gold in Indonesia, Wells pawns some jewellery, jumps on a plane and personally convinces esteemed geologist Michael Acosta (played by Edgar Ramirez and based on Bre-X project manager Michael de Guzman) to go into business with him, signing a contract literally written on the back of napkin.

Wells raises enough money to get drills turning in the jungle. The early results are discouraging, and Wells is incapacitated for days by a bout of malaria in the field. Upon his recovery Acosta delivers consistently rich gold intercepts.

If you know the Bre-X story, there will be no surprises about how the plot unfolds: tens of millions of ounces of gold “discovered”, a wild ride up the stock market, some corporate and political battles, and an infamous final helicopter ride over the jungle.

Nonetheless, Gold entertainingly captures the excitement and adventure of mineral exploration: bootstrap fundraising, staking claims in the jungle and the vindication of making a discovery.

McConaughey claims most of the screen time with a convincing portrayal of Wells as a scrappy, desperate, dream-chasing entrepreneur imbued with an irrational affection for the yellow metal. He’s a maverick and an impulsive risk-taker, comically out of place in the Indonesian jungle and Wall Street boardroom alike.

Wells’s geologist partner (Ramirez) seems aloof and unnatural, perhaps intentionally. And the lead’s longtime, small-town girlfriend Kay (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) remains inexplicably loyal to Wells, though skeptical about his business dealings.

The film gives short shrift to the massive injury inflicted on investors caught up in the swindle, and it makes no mention of the regulations brought into the industry since the fraud that have made a repeat unlikely.

Moreover, The Hollywood Bre-X story ends with possibly even less justice than the real-life crime. As such, it does little to dispel any negative notions about the mining business.

Gold hits theatres across North America on Jan. 27, 2017.

RELATED STORIES: Visit our Bre-X Minerals story archives