Sahara (2005)

*½/****
starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penélope Cruz, Lambert Wilson
screenplay by Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer and John C. Richards and James V. Hart, based on the novel by Clive Cussler
directed by Breck Eisner
 
by Walter Chaw For as difficult as it is to read a Clive Cussler novel, it's no more or less difficult to read something by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Robert James Waller, Dean Koontz, or Nicholas Sparks. A Cussler book is exactly what it is: a bestseller written specifically for people who base their reading decisions on how many other people have bought and ostensibly read a given book–bad grammar, bad sense, and ridiculous narratives be damned. So Sahara, Breck "Spawn of Michael" Eisner's feature debut (and what star Matthew McConaughey hopes is a franchise starter despite Cussler disowning the picture and threatening to sue), is an utterly faithful adaptation of the source material in that it's destined to become one of those movies people see or avoid depending on how low their expectations are going in or how irresistible the Friday night peer-pressure gets. It's a soulless picture, a wisp of a whimsy layered across what wishes it were an epic adventure, playing fast and loose with character and charisma while slathering on the boom-crash opera. The result isn't something awful so much as a spectacle without a hint of a human centre: a blockbuster played by action figures and written by children.

Dirk Pitt (McConaughey) is a swashbuckling archaeologist armed with a megawatt smile, a goofy sidekick named Giordino (Steve Zahn), and one of those Aardman claymation chickens, Eva (Penélope Cruz), for a love interest. His boss is Sandecker (William H. Macy), his enemy is that Merovingian wanker from The Matrix sequels (Lambert Wilson), and his superpower is that he's MacGuyver with a bigger budget. The plot concerns a lot of Confederate gold, loaded aboard a lost Ironside and sailed across the ocean to lodge in deepest, darkest Africa, to where we gather Pitt has tracked it over the course of an obsessive, Freedom Rock-scored opening pan across his office. Humour comes in the form of Pitt and Giordino reminiscing about backstory capers ("Remember the incident at the canal of Lost Souls?") that might give a thrill of recognition to people familiar with Cussler's Pitt series but just seems dorky to people who aren't. Eva, meanwhile, is a member of some world health organization investigating some African plague, and eventually, the two stories cross–though we never gain any further insight into why a Confederate sailor would take his battleship across the Atlantic, nor how the gold booty interred within could have anything to do with the plague, nor, ultimately, how the treasure could help the fortunes of West Africa without stirring up a heap of trouble in a war torn/poverty-stricken area. Sahara screams a lot, but it's not saying anything, its dialogue merely the stuff that happens between action scenes that aren't anything to write home about, anyhow.

Worse (though even as I say "worse," I realize I don't care), while the film's not over until the white villain dies, it seems pretty interested in killing a bunch of black people to up the ante along the way. This is what's known as "colonial racism," which is one of those things that only those who turned out in droves for Diary of a Mad Black Woman and the rest of the world really care about. For me, Sahara is a populist movie made without much imagination or verve and scored with an obnoxious AM Gold soundtrack of boozy Americana classics that fits right in with McConaughey's nude bongo-playing image. It's the bronzed golden lizard king, riding wakes on the rivers of the Dark Continent in search of Confederate plunder, his toadie in his hip pocket and exotic ladies from the nearer East (Spain) falling at his feet. The real bad guy is a Frenchman, the victims (and henchmen) in need of inspiration are black, and in the end there's nothing a few diplomatic gears greased by Yankee power and cash can't overcome. There's a difference between "exciting" and "busy"–how picky you are will have a lot to do with how much you tolerate SaharaOriginally published: April 8, 2005.

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