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Sahara
/ Best
Price $7.95
-- Buy it now!
It took more than
25 years for another Clive
Cussler
novel to come to the screen after the financial
and critical disaster of Raise the Titanic.
Based on Cussler's oddly landlocked adventure,
Sahara finds the author's hero, Dirk Pitt (Matthew
McConaughey)--a
sort of all-American, high seas variation of
James
Bond--in
Africa looking for a Confederate ironclad ship
that impossibly might have ended up there. Soon
he and his faithful sidekick Al Giordino (Steve
Zahn)
are lost in another adventure, discovering a
deadly contaminate being tracked by a beautiful
doctor (Penelope
Cruz).
The results are checkered: there's no one outstanding
sequence, but the action is enjoyably varied,
while the thrills are mild yet not bombastic
or gratuitous.
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The cast are all
adept in their roles, yet the only one who sparkles
is the scene-stealing Zahn, cast against type;
McConaughey, who also produced, knows he might
be starting a franchise character and plays
it safe. He's never as dangerous as Cussler's
hero is on the page (except in his introduction),
and in fact, the whole movie plays towards comedy,
infused by a soundtrack
of 70s FM radio monsters. Cussler fanatics may
not like this lighter fare, especially with
the archeological portion (a Cussler strong
point) not fully embraced, but with a very,
very likable cast and colorful settings, Sahara
is a kindler, gentler action film that has all
the elements in place for a better, more memorable
franchise if anyone cares to attempt it. --
Doug Thomas
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