Sahara (2005)

"...fun and casual, full of genuine laughs and thrills.  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"...a cross between a Bond movie and an Indiana Jones adventure...  Philip French, The Guardian
"The casting is so strong and the overall filmmaking flair of the movie is so captivating...it works.  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Editor's Note Dirk (Matthew McConaughey) and Al (Steve Zahn) have been friends since kindergarten, having also gone through college and the Navy together. The two now work for a former admiral traveling around the world and salvaging treasures from the sea with the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). In his spare time, Dirk is obsessed with the 150-year-old mystery of the Texas, an Ironclad battleship that reportedly disappeared from Richmond, Virginia during a Civil War battle and turned up in Africa. When a Confederate coin--allegedly one of only five minted--surfaces in Mali, Dirk and Al plan to travel there from Lagos, Nigeria on the admiral's yacht to investigate. Meanwhile, in Lagos, Dirk meets Eva (Penelope Cruz), a doctor for the World Health Organization (WHO) who believes that there is a plague building in Mali. Since the WHO is unable to find another way into the war-torn country, Dirk and Al give Eva and her colleague a lift up the river. Once in Mali, Dirk, Al, and Eva quickly find themselves embroiled in trouble as she pursues the source of the disease. Meanwhile, Dirk and Al search for the Texas. Based on a novel by Clive Cussler, SAHARA is a rollicking thrill ride through exotic locales, including everything from high-speed boat chases to helicopter pursuits to jeeps racing through the desert to camel rides. A warlord and a greedy French businessman prove to be formidable villains for the trio. McConaughey fits the bill as gentleman and adventurer Dirk, while Zahn holds his own as likeable sidekick Al. Cruz is feisty as independent Eva. Director Breck Eisner's theatrical feature film debut also features William H. Macy as the admiral.

	Matthew McConaughey
	Penelope Cruz
	Steve Zahn
	William H. Macy
	Allan Cameron - Production Designer
	Andrew MacRitchie - Editor
	Breck Eisner - Director
	Clint Mansell - Original Music By
	Clive Cussler - Based On Novel By
	Giles Masters - Art Director
	Matthew McConaughey - Executive Producer
	Seamus McGarvey - Cinematographer
	Stephanie Austin - Producer
	Thomas Dean Donnelly, et. al. - Screenplay
	Tony Reading - Art Director

New York Times
"Amid its madcap derring-do, the movie inserts clear, simple alarms about environmental protection, African despotism, global interdependence and bureaucratic cowardice." 04/08/2005 p.E13

Chicago Sun-Times
"[With] entertaining action sequences. Dirk, Eva and Al have an amazing series of close calls in the desert..." 04/08/2005 p.28

Uncut
"[A]s the breathtaking scenery does its work, you're irresistibly entertained..." 05/01/2005 p.134

Sight and Sound
"Matthew McConaughey is a charismatic lead. His double-act with Steve Zahn's sidekick Al is nicely droll..." 06/01/2005 p.71-72

ReelViews 7 of 10
Sahara takes the action/adventure story to new heights of preposterousness. In a way, that's not a bad thing, since it allows a certain level of guilty enjoyment. You're never expected to take anything in the movie seriously, because the characters and filmmakers don't. They're constantly directing knowing winks and nods at the audience, as if to reassure us that they know the story is stupid, but, hey, dumb can be fun sometimes. And there are times during Sahara when this approach works. Maybe 50 minutes worth of times. The problem? The movie is 127 minutes long. - James Berardinelli

Rolling Stone 7 of 10
McConaughey, despite alarmingly orange makeup, does justice to the role, a hard-drinking, shipwreck- hunting senator's son with a 007 way with the ladies. There's a lot of Pitt in Cussler, who has discovered more than sixty shipwrecks and started the National Underwater and Marine Agency, the nonprofit group that Pitt works with in the movie. Zahn, despite looking and sounding more like a surfer dude than the book's brawny Italian stallion, pushes for laughs and gets them. And Cruz, despite her still-indecipherable English, gets in more fem-warrior licks than Cussler ever wrote for the doc. Subplots abound involving slavery, gold and nuclear-waste pollution on its way to the U.S. But there's no disguising the fact that Sahara has all the heft of marshmallow. - Peter Travers