With guns blazing, men screaming and bullets ricocheting off metal, moviegoers would be forgiven for thinking they were sitting through the first twenty minutes of "XXX."
But the film was "Sahara," in which Matthew McConaughey proves a bit more up to the task of a semi-believable action adventure hero than Vin Diesel.
Dirk Pitt (McConaughey) is a professional treasure hunter and explorer. He embarks on an African odyssey upon the discovery of a gold coin from a nineteenth-century ironclad battleship. His quest takes him through dangerous terrains in West Africa where warlords rule the land and dissidents hide in the mountains.
Pitt and his lifelong friend and sidekick Al Giordino (Steve Zahn), save Dr. Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), a World Health Organization employee stationed in Lagos, from being attacked by locals while she is trying to find the source of a mysterious disease that affects outlying tribes. She believes the potential plague will wipe out all of Africa if left unchecked.
Pitt discovers that the natives call the ship he seeks the "Ship of Death," and that it had sailed up an African river to be stranded in the sand. Pitt suspects it is somehow linked to the deaths in the region.
A National Underwater Marine Agency agent (William H. Macy) and his team, which includes Pitt and Giordino, discover that the people of Africa are being poisoned by the pollutants in the ground water from an industrial factory that is illegally dumping chemical waste into an underground river. An alliance is formed between the African president and the corrupt factory owner who will stop at nothing to eradicate Dr. Rojas and her American protectors in order to cover up their illegal activity.
There are boat chases, explosions, machine gun fire, hairy helicopter rides, more explosions, a train-boarding jump from camels in full gallop, a fistfight atop a skyscraper, and all the action adventure stuff one could want. But the larger-than-life Dirk overshadows Cruz's character. His heroic antics too often force Cruz into the damsel-in-distress role.
The movie is based on the novel by Clive Cussler and is directed by Breck Eisner ("Thought Crimes"). "Sahara" is the second of Cussler's Dirk Pitt adventures to be adapted for the screen. "Raise the Titanic," directed by Jerry Jameson in 1980, was publicly dismissed by the author.
"Sahara's" scenery is breathtaking, particularly the African sunset complete with a huge, blazing, red sun over the sand dunes with camels striding along the ridge. The African architecture, filmed in Morocco and Spain, was also magnificent, consisting of houses and whole towns carved out of a mountainside. Interesting camerawork gives the feeling of flying three feet above the ground, especially when the camera veers through rooms examining their contents.
The soundtrack featured songs from the 70s intermittently mixed with African tunes. It gives the film an interesting appeal to hear "American Man," "Sweet Home Alabama," and "Magic Carpet Ride" mixed in with Jambo, rhythmic drums and chanting.
"Sahara" is reminiscent of a James Bond movie. There is love-story subplot, but it is underdeveloped in the face of the film's action. A little sexual tension between Cruz and McConaughey would have given the love story more depth.
