Pure guilty pleasure, Sahara has good looking heroes and plenty of action to keep everybody happy. If scientists could cross bread James Bond and Indiana Jones with a good old southern boy, then Dirk Pitt would be the prize to their efforts. Sahara is completely silly and way out of touch from reality, but then again what do we go to the movies for; it’s a perfect date night film.
Sahara
3 & 1/2 Stars
Pure guilty pleasure, Sahara has good looking heroes and plenty of action to keep everybody happy. If scientists could cross bread James Bond and Indiana Jones with a good old southern boy, then Dirk Pitt would be the prize to their efforts. Sahara is completely silly and way out of touch from reality, but then again what do we go to the movies for; it’s a perfect date night film.
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| (Release Date: April 8) |
Nothing but guilty pleasure here boys and girls. Sahara is an action packed comedy adventure that will take you on an adrenaline high. It’s James Bond meets Indiana Jones, it’s Laurel and Hardy for today. Steve Zahn as Al, the ever comedic sidekick, and Matthew McConaughy as Dirk Pitt, the handsome save the day and the chick lead, is a duo that is made for the big screen; humor roles between the two of them as if they have been pals forever. Pals forever is the point behind all of this, their relationship in the film should look like they have been on hundreds of adventures before this and will be on even more afterwards and it works. The duo is accompanied by William H. Macy as Admiral James Sandecker, as usual William is right on the mark, and Penelope Cruz is there too, she plays Dr. Eva Rojas, Pitt’s love interest and common do-gooder.
Sahara will take you from the Civil War to a battle between a brutal African dictator and his people in Mali; actually it was filmed in Morocco, but you can’t tell. Pitt and Al are deep-sea treasure hunters that spend the whole film on land looking for a non-existent Civil War battle-ship, along the way their paths cross with Dr. Eva Rojas who is going in the same direction trying to solve a sudden plague that is killing the people of Africa. Then we go from plague and treasure hunts to full-on nuclear waste is going to destroy the world mode; by the way the waste is getting into the water supply and causing the plague. As Sahara moves along, at a very rapid pace, the most unbelievable events happen to it’s characters. Awesome and ah inspiring things like a high-tech speed boat chase that is like no other you have seen on the big screen and a final battle between a helicopter and a rusted bucket with a few rusty hundred year old cannons. Many critics whined about the fact that the events and happenings in Sahara was so unreal and couldn’t happen; let me give you a clue, it’s a movie and it’s suppose to be unreal, DUH!
They didn’t Sink The Titanic this time, so stop your moaning Cussler. Clive Cussler wrote Sahara in a series of Dirk Pitt novels, it is the eleven adventure he has sent the duo on. I have never read the books myself, but if there was a flaw in the film it was from the story end of it; of course that might not have been completely Cussler’s fault, there was 4-screen writers on staff. Maybe there was too many hands in the pot. I’ll give mad props to first time director Breck Eisner, he did a great job under the pressure of big named stars and plenty of sand storms and African heat.
Like I said at the beginning, Sahara is pure guilty pleasure and is a hell of a ride. I enjoyed it and liked the fact that I could sit through a film and not cry or want to kill myself at the end. It’s a non-thinker, just for fun go out and have a good time type of film.