Matthew McConaughey stars as intrepid treasure seeker Dirk Pitt, whose obsession with a long-lost Civil War battleship takes him across west Africa and into a plot involving warlords and water pollution. Action adventure based on the books of Clive Cussler

Despite 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.

Verdict
Better suited to a book than a Hollywood production, Sahara is inoffensive but forgettable. Operating with a machine-tooled efficiency, it seems blithely unaware of its utter predictability.

Sand. gets everywhere, doesn't it? In your hair, in your sarnie, down your pants... Not to mention all those Hollywood action-adventure scripts. From Lawrence Of Arabia to The Scorpion King via Raiders Of The Lost Ark, the golden, gritty stuff has proven an ideal milieu for brash, tanned heroic-types with treasure to hunt, girls to save and stuff to blow up.

It was only a matter of time, then, before the stupidly named Dirk Pitt, hero of several pulpy novels by Clive Cussler, was given a cinematic excuse to romp around the dunes of West Africa. After all, what better use for the Third World's arid regions is there than as a playground for rugged Americans with little more in mind than salvage and carnage? Places where corrupt military dictators (in this case, the barely convincing Lennie James) need to be foiled; where camel-thrashing tribal rebels need to be patronised; where feisty maidens (Penélope Cruz, just about keeping up) need romancing; and where the clueless natives need saving.

In case you hadn't guessed, Sahara ain't about to redefine the dune-adventure sub-genre. In fact, it's a bit rubbish, really. Breck Eisner (did Cussler give him his name, too?) directs with effective economy but little flair, the action sequences are been-there-exploded-that, while the plot is downright preposterous. But - and this is a big, hefty, ass-kicking but - it's all such tongue-vaguely-in-cheek fun you don't particularly care.

At the eye of this silly, swirling desert storm is the winning buddy act of McConaughey's Dirk and Steve Zahn's Al Giordino. Buff, browned, with a blinding ivory grin and twinkly baby-greens, McConaughey fills out Pitt's grubby khakis perfectly. Here's a guy you believe can have a solution to every life-threatening problem, who matches brawn with brains and who rarely breaks a sweat, even when the bullets are flying. Zhan, meanwhile, is superb as the sidekick, forever exasperated by Pitt's impulsiveness, always ready to help him execute his get-out plans. As asinine as it all is, the two make sure every splutter is matched by a smile, every sneer by a cheer. At one crucial point, Al says to Dirk: "I'll find the bomb, you get the girl." And that pretty much sums up Sahara.
[12:54] CFINTL: ’ve just been to the Cast & Crew screening of Sahara in London, I’ve not seen a review of it posted yet so I thought I would have a go at writing one.

I’ve not read the books that the film was based on so I went in with no expectations, except that I had the impression that it wanted to be the next Indiana Jones. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone in thinking this as there was no way it could have measured up.

Ok, so here’s a little about the plot. We start off somewhere at the end of the American civil war. An iron clad ship is transporting gold and is under attack. Cut to modern day where we get a brief glimpse of Dirk Pitt’s office which features a model, drawings and info on the iron ship.

Penelope Cruz works for the World Health Organisation and is stationed in Lagos. She believes she’s found some kind of plague which is coming out of Mali. She gets attacked whilst investigating this andDirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) comes to her rescue. Dirk has a lead which takes him to Mali and he gives Penelope Cruz a lift.

They split up once in Mali and both get into various amounts of trouble with the President of Mali. He’s been working with a business man (can’t remember actors name but it’s the Merovingian from the Matrix) to dispose of chemical waste in the desert. Their plant is causing this “plague” and it happens to be located near to where the iron ship supposedly ended up. I won’t divulge any more so not to spoil it.

As blockbusters go, it’s not too bad. It’s quite a nice no brainer. Not too much to think about and plenty of explosions. I’m not sure what rating it’ll get but they’re definitely aiming for something low as the blood was kept to an absolute minimum and I don’t remember any cursing.

So to sum up, it’s no Indiana Jones but its a fairly decent family action/adventure film.[I]

I'd say this guy gave Sahara about a B-. But look at the other reviews, they're pretty good, expecially the ones by real critics.

My guess is that Sahara will probably be liked overall: B+

Anyone else for guessing?

I think this is probably the best we can hope for. As long as I don't sit cringing through the whole movie or wind up thoroughly dissappointed then I'll be happy.

Ok, obviously this person isn't a CC fan, and this line thoroughly discredits everything else (s)he said about the film. We can't expect every non-fan to like the movie, but can only hope it will appease the fans who have been waiting desperately for the books to come out in movie form.

let me tell you this if you go into the movie expecting it to be just like the book or the characters to be just like in the book you will be disappointed,but if you go in to see a movie loosely based on the book you "Might" enjoy it,all i have to say is better then the "Raise the Titanic" movie which isn't really saying much :P :P :P

I think the guy writing the review forgot to mention he was a huge Stephen King fan

Here's another one - and again, it's not good:

Desert Pitt Stop
Clive Cussler’s Adventurer Ambles Along

Sahara
Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn, William H. Macy, Lambert Wilson. Directed by Breck Eisner. Rated PG-13. 124 Minutes.

Larsen Rating: $4.00

Dashing heroes, feisty heroines, slimy villains, wisecracking sidekicks, things that explode, Sahara travels a familiar action movie road map, a by-the-numbers adventure which filters every frame through a nostalgic prism. All that sparkle can’t hide the fact Sahara feels like yesterday’s news.

Mixing espionage and pseudo history, author Clive Cussler’s series of Dirk Pitt novels were perfect page turners for a long, lazy summer. Too bad Sahara has been turned into a long, lazy film, one which took four writers to come up with the obvious. Since Sahara’s publication in 1992, so much sand has flowed through the hourglass of time the movie comes off looking like an impersonator.

Sahara is a movie for people who complain they don’t make them like they used to, always forgetting older isn’t necessarily better. Indeed, Sahara feels like a David Lean film pumped up on adrenaline, lacking common sense and featuring combustible paper-thin performances which incinerate under the hot sun. I was wrong, Sahara is nothing like a David Lean film.

It’s not much fun either. Director Breck Eisner paints every scene with a broad stroke, giving the production a larger-than-life look but robbing the story of any intimacy. Pitt, played by Matthew McConaughey, and the rest of the actors are nothing more than action figures in the hands of a director hell-bent on getting his money’s worth. If bigger were better, Sahara would be a masterpiece.

Pitt was created as an amalgamation of types, part James Bond, part Indiana Jones, part Jacques Cousteau, but as played by McConaughey, he’s more like a frat boy with a cool job. As a fan of the Cussler novels, I must admit McConaughey, with his baby blues and Clan of the Cave Bear wavy locks, isn’t believable as the seasoned adventurer. I like McConaughey, but he’s all wrong as Pitt. He’s too young. Remember, Pitt is the guy who raised the Titanic.

As the resident explorer of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, Pitt specializes in locating and retrieving lost ships. Pitt and former Navy SEAL sidekick Al Giordino (Steve Zahn, the go-to go for laughs) are in the middle of the Sahara tracking down a missing Civil War Ironclad. A Civil War-era coin leads the duo to hell on earth, where they encounter World Health Organization doctor Dr. Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), looking for the source of a deadly plague.

Talk about ships passing in the night, Pitt and Rojas cross paths several times, play a ping pong game of rescue, and then discover they’re both looking for the same thing. No, not a better movie, but a recycling plant in the middle of nowhere run by a shady French industrialist (Lambert Wilson). What the plant is doing in the middle of the Sahara I’ll leave to those of you brave enough to sit through the movie without fear of getting sand in your crack.

Top heavy with good intentions that fall flat on their face, Sahara, like Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront, coulda been a contender. Instead, it’s a noisy retrograde that doesn’t bode well for a continuing Dirk Pitt franchise. After the debacle of 1980's Raise The Titanic, Cussler kept a tight grasp on the remaining Pitt books, afraid Hollywood would turn his hero into a has been.

Perhaps by holding on to the purse strings for so long Cussler has shortchanged the series. I remember reading Night Probe and Iceberg, thinking to myself, wow, these books would make great movies. But that was over twenty years ago, and the tattered edges of time are evident in Sahara. Time has not been kind to Dirk Pitt. If this wreck were on the side of the road I doubt it would affect the flow of traffic. Most people would take one look, wonder what all the fuss was about, then move along.

Well, you know what opinions are like, huh? Clue: everyone has one.

Critics are called that for all the right reasons: They're critical. There's only 3-4 movies they'll ever curl up to in a given year, and that's because those movies are intended for Oscar night fawning.

mattgarrett: Your posting of negative reviews isn't productive. Let's keep things positive here. You're acting like it's over before it begins.

I'll again go back to my earlier post regarding the sloshfest known as "Armageddon." This was a horrible "film" that cost a lot, had high-profile actors, and made no friggin' sense, yet it's a huge favorite among the unassuming masses--the very same crowd that decided the success of Sahara in its opening weekend.

The earlier mention of DVD sales is a very important feature of today's film industry that shouldn't be forgotten. Believe it or not, there's a commercial audience out there who buys every new DVD regardless of interest. Those types of variables exist, so quit portraying imminent doom with the movie.