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SaharaDespite a variety of attempts, from Richard Linklater's The Newton Boys (1998) to submarine adventure U-571 (2000), the mantle of action hero has always eluded Matthew McConaughey. Playing Dirk Pitt, a daredevil Indiana Jones-alike hero, Sahara is his most concerted effort yet to stake this claim. Given that there are 14 books in the series by Clive Cussler, this is a potential franchise if ever there was one.
To be fair, McConaughey is good value as the character. Pitt is a good old-fashioned swashbuckler who doesn't feel the need to end every scene with a cheeky pay-off line and McConaughey manages to keep his performance the right side of smug. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the film as a whole.
Directed by Breck Eisner - the son of Disney CEO, Michael - this is a formulaic piece populated by clichéd characters. They include the wisecracking sidekick, in this case a typecast Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz as the sexy-but-bookish love interest Dr Eva Rojas. Together they hunt a treasure that's hidden aboard the so-called Ship of Death, an ironclad Civil War-era craft that sunk without trace. Hindering their efforts is a learned-but-crooked businessman (Wilson, repeating his role in Catwoman) and an impossibly evil dictator (James), who's been dumping nuclear waste in the Niger River - enough to cause a potentially catastrophic collapse of the surrounding eco-system.
Dirk is in West Africa working for the National Underwater and Marine Agency when he rescues Dr Rojas from some unruly natives and immediately establishes his dashing hero credentials. He also makes a valuable ally in her efforts to uncover the mystery surrounding the spread of a deadly disease. Soon enough we learn that the local water is being contaminated by the toxic waste and looks set to spark an environmental meltdown - a potential calamity that distracts Dirk from his mercenary mission.
As you'd expect for such a film, there are plenty of well-staged action set-pieces from a speedboat chase to a vertigo-inducing skirmish atop a huge tower. However, adapted by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (who wrote Eisner's previous film Thoughtcrimes) and with two other writers credited, the screenplay has suffered at the hands of too many cooks and feels ultimately half-baked.
While the likes of Macy and Lindo are wasted in small roles, those that are given significant screen time bring little to the table. It's not that Cruz or Zahn are bad, it's just that they're not challenged by the material. While Eisner ensures that the story moves along at a decent clip, the film doesn't even match the mediocre scavenger hunt National Treasure (2004) for excitement. Rather like the dilapidated airplane Dirk and Al find in the desert, the film feels patched up. As Al says, "I don't want to rain on your crazy parade but I don't think we can fix this thing." Secretly, the filmmakers probably felt the same way.
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