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action-adventure film "Sahara" is the kind of movie Hollywood could do
with one hand tied behind its back, blindfolded, and with one of its legs broken
due to a car accident on the 405. This is pure, unadulterated "brain
mush" fun, and my oh my is it ever fun. Loud, vacuous, improbable, but oh
so nice to look at while the brain is shut down for two hours and change. If you
can't enjoy the fact that "Sahara" is a brainless popcorn film made
for the easily distracted, or those voluntarily looking to be distracted, then
you simply have no appreciation for film as a medium of entertainment.
"Sahara", based on a novel by the
prolific Clive Cussler, stars bongo enthusiast and Texan Matthew
McConaughey as the improbably named Dirk Pitt, an ex-Navy SEALS turned
marine adventurer. Working under the ever patient command of the stout
Admiral Sandecker (William H. Macy, cashing a big paycheck), Pitt and
long-time buddy Al Giordino (Steve Zahn, perfectly at home as the
comedic sidekick) spends their time finding lost treasures from the
ocean floor. But Pitt has more ambitious plans in mind, one that
includes finding a fabled Confederate ironclad ship that was thought to
have gone missing at the tail end of the Civil War over 150 years ago.
As luck, and a script full of convenient plot
twists and turns, would have it, Pitt's search for the missing ship
leads him to a war-torn African country, which also happens to be where
WHO (World Health Organization) doctor Eva Rojas (McConaughey's
real-life girlfriend Penelope Cruz) is headed to investigate a growing
plague. Now in Africa and hunted by a vicious warlord with his own
personal army, Pitt, Giordino, and Eva crosses paths with a band of
resistant fighters, a slimy Frenchman, and lots and lots of random
desert. Then later Dirk and Al stumbles onto the wreckage of what I
think is the plane from the Dennis Quad movie "Flight
of the Phoenix", but don't quote me on it.
Simply put, "Sahara" was made for
audiences to check whatever intellectual ability they possess at the
door, and to do otherwise is asking for trouble. To wit: you'll get no
sympathy from me if you were foolhardy enough to exercise any cerebral
functions during the film. This is pure, mindless entertainment, filled
with loud explosions, improbable plot twists, and the kind of shallow
characterization that belongs in one of those 1980s action-adventure TV
series. Having said that, "Sahara" is also a movie that
delivers on everything it promises -- international intrigue, tons and
tons of explosions and gunfire, and wanton disregard for the
justification of a loud action scene that results in stuff blowing up
real good.
And stuff blows up really good in
"Sahara". A lot. Most of the time. Okay. Stuff blows up pretty
much all the time.
If you wanted to nitpick, I suppose you could
wonder why leads Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz has such lousy
chemistry, especially considering that there was actual real-life
romantic entanglements going behind the scenes. At the risk of sounding
like a chauvinist, I mostly blame the lack of chemistry on Penelope
Cruz, who I have always suspected was the product of a very
sophisticated, elaborate, and inhumanely persistent hype machine. In all
the movies I've seen her in, Cruz has never really shown anything close
to "star quality", and that run-of-the-mill presence that I've
come to associate with her continues with "Sahara".
Mind you, not that the script has any real interest in
developing characters. The script is little more than an excuse to get
the three main characters into one "action-filled" situation
after another. Oh look, they're in a boat and going down the African
river. Gee, is that boat going to blow up real good at some point? That,
alas, is as "complex" as "Sahara" ever gets, which
isn't saying much considering that it took four people -- count'em, four
-- to write the screenplay. And how much does the movie resemble
Cussler's book? I couldn't tell you, not being a fan, or a reader, of
Mr. Cussler's literary works.
Without
putting too much of a fine point on it, "Sahara" is
intellectually challenged, which in this case is not necessarily a
detrimental quality, as that was the obvious intention all along. In
that regard, director Breck Eisner has certainly done a bang up job. The
desert locale is quite scenic, and the film's 2-hour run has almost no
dead spots whatsoever, which is a definite must in films of this genre.
If nothing else, at least you can say that the film never bored you. The
choice of songs on the soundtrack is also a major plus, filled with some
classic rock and, when appropriate, African chants.
"Sahara" is an unapologetic action-adventure
film without any brains to hinder its brawn. The film is straightforward
in its inability to be smart and true to its dedication to being loud,
fast, and devoid of all levels of substance. One would have liked more
chemistry between Cruz and McConaughey, but in a film where the
"romance" is little more than perfunctory (if that), I guess
you can't really complain too much. Although it's curious to note the
general lack of chemistry between the two leads, as one has to wonder
what that means in real-life when they can't even fake credible interest
in each other onscreen.
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