Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

seriosbrad First season was intriguing. But immediately starting the second season you clue in to how scripted and funded the teams are.At the end of the first season, they didn't mine enough gold to pay their own wages, break even, or even purchase new equipment.Season 2, they mysteriously had gobs of money to re-locate, lease and mine a new plot, and purchase new equipment.

rsvp321 The "5" is for the part of the show illustrating the gold mining.If I was grading on the amateur acting of the Hoffman and Schnabel crews, it would be a fat zero.I do enjoy the Beets portions without criticism - honest workers, no drama.Schnabel - petulant spoiled brat, perpetual smirk on his face, an idiot that only looks successful due to the hard work of his employee - of which he is a real prick to every episode. What a goof! Shows like this has an audience not for the fake drama, but just to watch the machines working, illustrate repairs and improvisation, and the final product. It doesn't need anything else! Just like "Ax Men", another great show that the producers ruined by the fake drama, this series is also going to eventually fail, if they keep up with the soap opera scripts.EDIT/ADDED:I've just finished watching S08 ep 20, and have to amend my review.Todd and crew are pathetic, portray themselves as bumblers that have traveled North and South America mining for gold, and obviously don't have a clue about mining, nor understand the machines they use in the show. I see them as a bunch of aimless idiots!Tony Beets has joined in the soap opera scripts, it seems - behaving like a greedy a-hole that resents anyone else operating a mine to the point of sabotaging others' operations?! Yes, what he does, obstructing the lawful movement and development of another business is criminal, *and if this was real acts of interference* he would be arrested and lose all the rights to his claims - forbidden from mining, himself...but it's fake, so he continues to just behave like a goof for the cameras.Parker is still a tyrant brat that continues with his own fake crisis, fake feud with Beets, and fake drama.*All these lands are owned by the State/Province/country, and mining rights/prospecting rights are permitted by the grace of these government jurisdictions*. All the show characters are only temporary guests of the land.With contempt toward the show producers, that have lost focus on the gold mining, I've reduced the five-stars to a one...because zeroes aren't permitted. This show is starting to bore the hell out of me!

Peka Bali I started watching the series with I guess the same fascination many of us have: the interesting and daring abilities of man, the perseverence and excitement in achieving success. After a few series, I realized that this series is the representation of Evil in its purest form: the American Dream gone bad.. The financials of a gold-digging business consists of cost and revenue: the struggle is about earning more than spending on equipment and manpower. And while it seems useful for the sakes of employing people, the net sum is that there is no practical use whatsoever of adding gold to the existing gold in the world: the enormous sums of gold that exist currently are not even fractionally being used for useful purposes, such as healthcare equipment or R&D. Most of it is used purely for speculation or totally useless consumer goods we could live without, or for which alternatives could be developed from other materials than gold. But the result of the gold digging business is, almost equal to the enormous amounts of money earned with this rare metal, the enormous pollution caused by the machines that work on digging it out and dredging, not to speak of the maintenance of these machines and even more pollution creating them for this purpose. And given the relative cheapness of oil compared to the value of gold, the volumes puffed away are enormous. Not to forget the accessability of gold: trees destroyed, creeks diverted, top soil removed which we are in dire need of to sustain nature, and the non-mentioned chemical treatments that many companies use to make the gold even more accessible. And all this for what? To give some punters the chance to get rich. What a noble cause.. Which brings me to the second, human aspect: the way these miners are portrayed. Their lifestyle and attitude towards other fellow humans. Moreover, towards those who make them rich. Here, the operation owners show their truly dark side: the hypocrite quasi-Christian praying of the simple-minded Hoffman, who behaves as if it is an unjust act of God if he does not get rich from gold digging, while he obviously has no clue of the business and most likely never made a profit, were it not for the heavy royalty money he gets from the producers of the series. Does God exists for the purpose of bringing them gold, as if the entity were some servant that does favours?.. Followed by the ego-centric Schnabel, who instead of learning humanity and humility from his late grandfather, has learned to become a self-appointed prodigy for the sakes of showing his merits, walking over his loyal men at any given occasion with the fury of a 5-year-old deprived of his toys, while immediately deserting them when a new kid comes around the block who kisses his *ss and hisses as a snake in his ears. No spine whatsoever, in the business pour l'art and would not survive either, were it not for the parents offering him this opportunity to play with toys. Last but worse, Mr Evil himself, the peasant Dutchman turned dictator, Tony Beets. The style is the man himself: hates the world and everything in it and the only God for this man is money. Treats everyone who works for him worse than slaves, including his own children who hate him and just see him as a fat wallet, just to compensate for his lack of self respect, justly knowing that someone like him should never be in a position of power, due to his sheer destructive manner towards anything human. The three flawed characters represent the American Dream gone bad: no noble cause, exploiting the opportunities offered in the worst possible way, people that serve them and destroying nature along the way. We watch with fascination, as if a dark drama is being presented that never ends, always waiting for liberation when finally their success may turn them into the good people we hope they really are deep within. But the fact is, the evil in them grows along with the purpose of the business and will never lessen. Their success will only justify their methods and the spiral never ends. It is up to us to decide whether we realise the sickness of it all and learn the lessons taught: what to avoid in our ways at all cost, how not to live our lives and finding real purposes instead of these people's meaningless goals. The sad reality however is that the producers do not make any attempt to offer this choice: no contemplation, no retrospect, no reflection. The series is shallow and is lost in the mechanics of the business, in the details of „thrills and tension" whenever a new human bond is tested or broken, due to the inherent risks of the ventures. We are left to our devices to learn and most of us probably are led to believe that the acts are heroic and for worthy causes, just another aspect of a twisted world. The producers would have a powerful means to reflect on the sickness of it all, instead they exploit the weak human interest in sensation and drama and encourage drama to portray twisted minds as heroic acts of perseverence. Either they are pathetic or plain dumb. The series is a human fail and should be taught in schools as media manipulation first degree. The actors should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, the producers sent to detox to get rid of their perverted minds. Meanwhile, stay sane and use your heart when you watch this garbage. The real world is not like this, don't let it become like it by accepting lies as the truth.

ollieoxen27 What appears to be a group of six novice miners searching for gold in Alaska is actually a produced TV program paid for by sponsors. All the desperation of mortgaging their lives, taking a great financial risk, and possibly failing in their efforts to make money are all fake.In the fist season they only found 14 ounces of gold worth about twenty thousand dollars but in actuality each minute of commercials probably brings the production company about that much money so everyone in this production is doing quite well. Unless you want to believe the miners (actors) agreed to act for free. YEAH RIGHT!Each miner (actor) is probably being paid about thirty thousand dollars per episode to act desperate.