Black Gold follows the story of an Arab prince, Auda (Tahar Rahim), who’s stuck between two warring sultans. An American oil company has come to drill for oil that lies beneath a patch of land which the two sultans mutually own, known as the Yellow Belt. Sultan Nesib (Antonio Banderas) wants to profit from the venture so as to build schools, hospitals and modernise his city. Sultan Amar (Mark Strong) is a strict religious man, on the other hand, who believes the Yellow Belt has a religious significance and that exploiting the land for financial gain is blasphemy.
Black Gold is visually stunning in places with breathtaking landscapes and good cinematography. The budget for this film was clearly huge, judging by the technical proficiency, army of extras and extravagant action sequences. Despite its massive budget, the film hasn’t got much else to show unfortunately.
The dialogue was always contrived and on-the-nose. The action was melodramatic and any gags were simply lame. Most of the performances from the cast were hammy to the point their characters seemed nothing more than cartoonish. It’s a very serious film taking on very serious issues, but I struggled to take any of it seriously. I couldn’t get the image of Puss in Boots out of my head as Antonio Banderas strutted around in full Arabian attire trying to bend his accent into something less like Zorro.
Riz Ahmed of Four Lions fame was my highlight. He was supposed to play a doctor who wanted to revolutionize his culture’s archaic attitude towards modern medicine. Ahmed’s satirical roots shone through, however, and his character turned into more of a jester who provided a much needed bit of comic relief from all the supposedly serious political drama going on.
Black Gold was full of good intentions. As admirable is it was to deal with such epic themes as greed, capitalism, religious fundamentalism, peace and war, no amount of money and superficial gloss could distract from the film’s contrived dialogue, melodramatic characters and farcical plot.
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