Sahara is a 2005 epic adventure about an explorer who goes on the adventure of a lifetime of seeking out a lost Civil War battleship that might be in the deserts of West Africa.
There have been plenty of big studio box office flops. Seriously. Seems like every year there are high expectations for another huge blockbuster and year after year, like loose columns in soggy soil, they tumble into oblivion. In 2005, that honor fell upon an enormous movie called Sahara, a two hour and four minute action-adventure film that had everyone involved believing they were about to not only have a hit on their hands but also kick off a new killer franchise. Turns out, not so much.
I’ll admit that I actually like the film, though having been a longtime fan of the movie’s source material from prolific author Clive Cussler, I was a little biased going in. His series of books about the adventures of protagonist Dirk Pitt entertained me for years and I can’t deny I still enjoy flipping open one of these old paperbacks and sinking headfirst into their fantastical escape from reality. Behind the scenes, the adaptation of this book went way off the rails of course, leaving Cussler and the film’s producers in a decades-long court battle where each pointed blame at the other for the movie’s ultimate failure. Millions of lost dollars will do that. However, for fans of the book and the hero at the center, it’s easy to let that squabble rest far to the peripheral, as one really should, and just let this be a fun few hours at the movies.
The story goes like this, and you might want to take a breath: In the last stages of the American Civil War, the ironclad Confederate ship Texas fights its way through a Union blockade, inside the small vessel stored the last of the Southern treasury, though now in present day, World Health Organization doctors Eva Rojas (Penélope Cruz) and Frank Hopper (Glynn Turman) are on the tail of a dangerous disease sweeping across Mali, though there are those in power that seek to prevent them from making any headway, which has Rojas investigating a lead where she is attacked by assassins but rescued by Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey), who just happens to be in the neighborhood on an expedition for NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency). Exhale.
Pitt, we learn, has long been hunting for the ironclad, thinking it somehow made its way across the Atlantic to Africa and it laden with secrets. Agreeing to help Rojas and Hopper with their efforts, bringing them down the Niger River, Pitt’s boss, Admiral Sandecker (William H. Macy) gives Pitt and his loyal sidekick Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) and colleague Rudy Gunn (Rainn Wilson) three days to test Pitt’s theories. What they find is a massive conspiracy to cover up the source of the plague and a madman with an army and a plan to stop them at all costs, not to mention a side-plot that could see the oceans die.
As an action movie, director Breck Eisner‘s film is hardly lacking for such, with a number of extended sequences that certainly aren’t without energy, even if most are generic, many mixing high adventure with bouts of comedy, the combination of which don’t always work as one tends to deflate the other, leaving the story without much consequence. It sort of copies a 80s James Bond chase and charm style where the screen is filled with high-speed vehicular mayhem ending with snarky one-liners. Fortunately, even if the action is conventional, the laughs are delivered with zeal from a very well cast McConaughey and Zahn, the two not even remotely resembling their book counterparts but as an on-screen Abbott and Costello pair of thrill seekers hitting all the right marks. They are so good (Zahn especially) that you kinda wish there were sequels just to see what more they could do together. Best of all though is Macy, who steals every scene he’s in, simply because he plays it perfectly straight, nailing everything about Sandecker that makes him so great in the books.
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Critics panned the film for its ceaseless action and absurd plot though if any of them had read a single book by Cussler – stories that included raising the Titanic (itself made into a film in 1980 with Richard Jordan) – would know that absurd is the name of the game. Yes, Sahara is far from challenging with the story on rails through a series of contrived moments that put the team through the proverbial ringer, however as a battle-ready adventure story, is quite a fun ride.
Undoubtedly, the film, with an adapted screenplay by James V. Hart and Thomas Dean Donnelly, borrows heavily from many, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and a host of others from the genre. Shot on location in Morocco, Spain and England, one of the best things going for it is its sense of place, lending some much-needed authenticity to the whole exotic affair. While far too often things sort of fall into place a little too neatly, such as cave paintings in an isolated village, if taken with a large grain of salt, there is loads to like about this, the sheer commitment to silliness actually kind of fun. This is a manufactured string of over-the-top chaos that includes villains with nefarious contraptions and a trio of hardscrabble heroes who race to stop a flood of toxins that could threaten every living thing on the planet. What more could you want?