Deserto do Ouro

However, despite the excellent effort and story ,it, in my mind was unsatisfying.

The bleak decolourised washed out look is a bit of a cliche these days and made it visually bland, especially in the kind of landscapes it was filmed in. That was the intention I suppose, but The Good , the Bad and the Ugly desert scenes ( in colour) were far more effective in conveying mood and intensity.

Not a commercial movie and might only appeal to males, solitary, alienated desert freaks.

Just an opinion.

Watching over a chunky mountain of gold in the australian desert outback country. A twisted story about greed and gloathing gold like king midas of the past.

Hot sun and delirious minds, its litterary gold fever. A small cast survival thriller, a story that desmond bagley wouldve chuckled over and wilbur smith would nod about. The production shows the harsh dried out hell of australian desertlife, where the flies are kings and the snake and scorpions are the warriors. Neatly filmed and acted, the makeup squad gone bananas, and most stuff stashed like a good ol' madmax stage.

If youre able to sit and wait for things to happen, youll be rewarded, i did. A small recommend from the grumpy old man.

After watching the new and utterly disappointing Matrix and Resident Evil films, I was beginning to lose hope in the movie industry, when this movie came along and proved to me that there are still excellent directors out there who can take a simple idea and turn it into "gold". (pun intended)

I enjoyed this movie from start to finish. I have always liked survival movies, especially the ones which involve trying to survive in the desert. The movie does an excellent job by not providing any sort of back story. You have no idea where the main character is headed and why (he refers to his destination vagely as the compound), or what's going on in the world for that matter. It makes you think of a post apocalyptic world, a Mad Max kind of world, but never gives you any clear hint as to what's really going on. While a bit weird, that's completely ok with me, because it helps you focus on the main plot; i.e. Trying to survive in the desert, which was absolutely enjoyable.

The shots were all beautifully taken and the accompanying music added to the mood. The ending came as a big surprise. The only real complaint I have is that it ended abruptly, but I totally get why they did it; because they were focused on making a moral point, and you can't help but think about that moral point the entire time the movie is playing, because it's so in your face.

If you enjoy survival movies with the desert as their setting, you're in for a hell of a ride, but if you don't like such slow-paced movies, you're going to find this movie excruciatingly slow and boring, so know your likes and dislikes before watching this movie so as not to waste your time or crtiticize such an excellent movie unfairy just because you didn't know what you were going into and were not familiar with your likes and dislikes.

If you're looking for action, horror, romance, science-fiction or a fast-paced movie, look elsewhere, because that's not what you're going to get from this movie.

I hope you're not giving me thumbs down just because I immensely enjoyed this movie, because I clearly told you about what this movie entails, and hopefully, now you can make up your mind.

Zac Efron hasn't been in much lately. I suspect he's probably just working on other projects and doing other things with his time. But 'Gold' was not the type of film I expected him to come back with. At least it looked kind of interesting so I was excited to check it out. Here are my thoughts.

The film starts out very slowly. There are only two characters and neither of them are very interesting. At this point I was worried this could be a very slow and dull film. Then it gets to the plot though and things start to become a little more interesting.

The thing that bugged me most about the film was that it made no sense. Efron's character stays to guard the gold, however no one has ever found it before now. So why are they worried someone will miraculously find it in the next 5 days in the absolute middle of nowhere? I had trouble getting past that plot-point.

A large portion of the movie is just Efron's character by himself trying to survive. For a film to get away with this you have to be impeccable, otherwise you will lose your audience fast. 'Castaway' was strong enough to pull it off (just) - and even then it took a volleyball to carry it through. 'Gold' isn't quite as strong. The middle of this film can get a little tedious.

The make-up used on Efron's face was very well done. It didn't seem particularly consistent (I could be wrong on that but it felt like every time we cut to a new scene he looked different to the last), but it did look very painful and quite realistic.

The ending of the film is a bit of fun. I like it when films aren't afraid to do something a bit different in terms of concluding their film.

This is a very somber film. There are exactly zero laughs attempted. It doesn't take away from the film, but it is worth noting. 'Gold' isn't a film I will watch again. It had its moments and was mildly enjoyable at times but probably not one I would go out of my way to recommend. 6/10.

Gold (2022) had a promising start and overall has demonstrated solid production value, although the washed-out look got old fast.

While the acting was perfectly fine, as it gets closer to the end, it starts to wear on you. This isn't really a human nature study, more like a semi-survival film full of stupid decisions. The only human trait here was greed. Nothing more than that. In a future like this, you would think people would've still bet on survival over pointless death.

The resolution is obvious from the start since this is what would happen in a real-life situation. They added a little "twist" at the end, but it barely connects, since it means nothing for the viewer or the characters, and rather solidifies the message the film is trying to push.

The whole story relies on our main character not being too bright, and it's fine. The problem is that we barely know anything about the world and the characters. Frankly, there are no characters going through arcs, people encounter problems in a not-so-bright future, and never change. This was probably intended, and probably realistic enough, but even a couple of flashbacks establishing motivations or attitudes would've been great. Especially since the acting was good.

As it is, Gold (2022) is an ok semi-survival film but feels very shallow and does not connect the viewer to what these "characters" are going through. There are also some things that make little sense, like why Virgil didn't just leave when he got the Stranger's loot. Since one can walk there on foot, he could've given it a try, it's not as a middle of nowhere as they said it was. I guess greed is an answer to anything in this, but the introductory scene (and the burial scene) suggested some sort of dignity or reliability in Virgil, soon to be gone, again, greed. Also, it is unclear when Keith got back since neither he nor the other Stranger was affected by the dust storm. I guess I'm nitpicking, but I'd still prefer Virgil to switch into survival mode at the end, there is greed, but people still have survival instincts.

Overall, the film leaves a bad taste, which is intended but feels empty on details, which is not. It's not long, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, more like 50/50.