Sahara (2005) * * *

 

Directed by:  Breck Eisner

Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz, Glynn Turman, William H. Macy, Lennie James, Lambert Wilson, Delroy Lindo, Rainn Wilson

Sahara cheerfully takes us through a series of action sequences and near-misses our heroes must endure in order to complete their mission.   The movie, and the actors, do this with spirit and gusto.  Gusto is not a word I use often, but it fits perfectly when describing the absurd and fun Sahara.  

Sahara opens with Dr. Eva Rojas (Cruz) and her WHO partner (Turman) discovering a plague with has killed six people in West Africa near Mali.  Dr. Rojas suspects the numbers will increase dramatically.  Eva crosses paths with treasure hunters Dirk Pitt (McConaughey) and Al Giordino (Zahn), whose home base is a yacht run by retired Admiral Sandecker (Macy) and supported by what seems to be one hundred workers.   Their searches are funded by a French billionaire industrialist (Wilson), who we aren't surprised to learn is allied with a Malian dictator and are poisoning the Niger River while making beaucoup profits.  

How are they making money off of this scheme?   Don't ask me.  I'll just take it on faith that they are.  Once Dirk, Al, and Eva stumble across this plot, they are now targets of the Malian army.   Oh, and the boys are also searching for a Civil War Confederate Ironclad ship which somehow made its way across the Atlantic and is now buried somewhere in the Malian desert.   The ship is alleged to have Confederate gold aboard, if it can be found.   How the ship is uncovered after spending roughly 150 years buried in the desert is among the absurd portions of Sahara.   That and the idea that somehow the desert was once a raging river not so long ago.   I knew climate change moved fast, but not that fast.

All of these plot points neatly tie together, as you would expect.   We know a movie in which a female voice helpfully tells warehouse workers: "System error.  Please report to your escape routes at once." and then begins counting down to the time in which a bomb will explode, is something you would only see and hear in a movie like Sahara.   Sure, Sahara has a plot which doesn't hold up under much scrutiny and it doesn't matter.   We have fun watching it and the actors are clearly having a blast starring in it.   Put those energies together and you have a two-hour action adventure which flies by.