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Gold Dust
USA 2020
produced by Richard J. Cook, David Wall, Ken Stokes (executive), Joyce Stokes (executive), Denise DeFelice Hopkins (executive), Keith Anderson (executive), Melissa McGinnis (executive) for Oculi Entertainment, Little Horse Thief Pictures
directed by David Wall
starring David Wysocki, David Wall, Derek Severson, Garrett Marchbank, Maggie Hough, Liam Wall, Finnegan Wall, Lucy Hough, Burns Burns, Jerron Webster, Daniel Hopkins, Ron Ryan, Darin Brooks, Chris Romano, Jack Wall, Aaron Hough, Kerry Wall, Brennan Wall, Eric Liebrecht, David Beardsley, Elizabeth Sullivan, Howard Song, Greg Salyers, Aidan Connolly, Alyssa Cox, Adalyn Ackermann
written by David Wall, music by Jessy Ribordy
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Moses (David Wysocki) and Fink (David Wall) are two fairly successless
treasure hunters who are presently roaming the desert looking for a pirate
ship that's said to have sunken in a salt lake centuries ago, and never
recovered while carrying gold worth hundreds of millions of Dollars. They
never find the ship, but where they suspected it to be they find a dead
Santa (David Beardsley) in a Jeep, a weird flying contraption, a bag
containing millions of Dollars, and a young girl, Maggie (Maggie Hough),
they accidently run over. Now Moses insists on taking care of the girl,
whom he soon sees as his surrogate daughter, while Fink insists on taking
the money, even though it more likely than not is drug money. And of
course it is, so El Guapo (Garrett Marchbank), head of a drug cartell,
sends his best man, the Dancing Killer (Derek Severson), after them, to
retrieve the money and also Maggie, who has been working as a drug
courier.
Eventually, Moses and Fink split, with Moses taking Maggie with him,
and soon the two hook up with other kids, who all have fled El Guapo's
employ. But their trail is easy to pick up for the Dancing Killer. Fink,
on foot, makes it to Vegas with the money, and has but one goal, to
finally propose to his high school love Joy Lynn (Kerry Wall), and now
that he's rich he thinks he's worthy, too. Unfortunately he hasn't done
much research on her and doesn't know she's actually since high school
become the wife of El Guapo, and El Guapo is quick to recognize the bag of
money Fink carries as his, and thus Fink is not only releaved of the money
but also treated to a good beating - and really can consider himself lucky
that he made it out alive. It's only now he realizes the one thing that
really mattered in his life is his friendship to Moses, so he heads back
to the desert to reunite - and not a moment too soon, as the Dancing
Killer has since taken Mosed, Maggie and all the other kids captive and
prepares to kill them, and Fink is really their last hope. But Fink is
also unarmed, untrained in combat, and a bit clueless about everything,
while his opponent is a virtual killing machine with but one weakness ...
Now in writing this might sound like just another average
adventure movie with all the genre elements exactly where you'd expect
them and a saccharine message about the value of friendship tagged on at
the end - but on film Gold Dust feels like anything but that, for
one because script and direction are extremely playful with the formula,
populating the desert with all sorts of eccentric characters, and making
the "heroes" of the piece loveable losers who are not given the
typical hero's journey that has been shoved out throats one time too many
already, but taking the concept apart and piecing it together in a whole
new way - and especially the finale that's seen to be believed is ample
proof for that. Likewise, the dialogue is anything but genre-specific, but
for the most part dead funny, and only the fewest of the setpieces play
out the way they're supposed to. Now I wouldn't go as far as to say this
is a parody, but it's a hilarious film that's not to be missed.
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