With their mix of action and repartee, romps like “Sahara” can be irresistible mutts.
Robust, alert and eager to wag its tale of adventurer Dirk Pitt and pal Al Giordino, “Sahara” begins with a Civil War-era Ironclad warship possibly carrying Confederate currency making a run for it on the James River.
Cut to a modern, cluttered office.
First-time feature director Breck Eisner’s switch from old to new turns out to be a fine way to introduce Pitt, played with a grinning, old-fashion Hollywood ease by Matthew McConaughey. As Pitt’s best pal, Giordino, Steve Zahn proves that a young guy in codger mode can be a hero and his film’s greatest asset.
The camera scans bulletin boards and noses around desktops. There it finds newspaper clippings about the former Navy SEAL who now works for the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Here it eyes photos of Dirk with Al. It hovers
above miniature models of the missing iron boat. Pitt is obsessed with the idea the ship found its way to Africa. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey’s curious observer floats on the funky growl of Dr. John’s “Right Place, Wrong Time” before hitching a ride on some beguiling West African music and zooming in on Dr. Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), staring out of a racing World Health Organization SUV.
Rojas and her associate, Dr. Hopper (Glynn Turman), are on the trail of a possible outbreak, a disease that has traveled from Mali to Nigeria, leaving its victims with skin ulcers and clouded eyes before killing them.
Pitt and Dr. Rojas meet when she is attacked investigating the mysterious illness. They meet again when their obsessions rile the same baddies:
Malian warlord General Kazim and French businessman Yves Massarde (Lambert Wilson).
One of “Sahara’s” charming ticks (though hardly genre- shattering) is the way Pitt and Rojas save each other’s hineys. Still, their rescue tango offers a sure sign the filmmakers believe in a good-natured adventure. Other examples of this cultural decency abound.
When Admiral Sandecker (William H. Macy), Pitt’s and Giordinos’ employer, unveils a salvaged treasure, he speaks of history as something to be “returned to its people.”
“Sahara” spreads its good and ill around. Lennie James plays Kazim not as African buffoon, or even as a sadist. He’s more real than that: a mildly savvy, arrogant, increasingly immoral powermonger.
The film, like its heroes, gladly embraces the responsibilities that come when you take your action adventure to another continent and other cultures. When Dirk enters a centuries-old library in a Malian city, he passes small groups of boy students. That these young Muslims aren’t depicted as frenzied devotees of a madrassa is a point as quiet as the library’s basement archives.
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“It’s time to call in the cavalry,” Dirk says once he, Al and Eva are faced with the scope of the impending disaster. “Sahara” does a nice tease by posing the question “Whose cavalry?”
Crammed with characters, “Sahara” doesn’t feel overburdened by them. Dirk’s supreme – though thanks to McConaughey, not smug – confidence gives the movie a breeziness. A brief meeting between Macy’s Sandecker and CIA operative Carl (Delroy Lindo) on a street in Lagos, Nigeria, furthers the plot. But mostly it offers a nice sidebar between talented character actors.
Granted, there are some shameless improbabilities that come with such a relaxed approach. For instance, when lovely Dr. Rojas shows up in formal attire at an event, you’re left with two thoughts. One is that the good doctor knows how to do the “little black dress” one better. That or, Vera Wang has an outlet in Nigeria.
None of “Sahara’s” smart tweaks and turns makes it profound, exactly. And if book author Clive Cussler’s frustration with the script is that “Sahara” doesn’t have the self-important weight of a Tom Clancy-fueled film, like “Clear and Present Danger,” he’s right.
D stands for Dirk. It even stands for diverting. So what if it doesn’t stand for deep. McConaughey and his co-stars make the case that fun, however fleeting, is still fun.
“Sahara”
**
PG-13 for action violence|2 hours, 4 minutes|ADVENTURE|Directed by Breck Eisner; written by Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer, John C. Richards and James V. Hart; photography by Seamus McGarvey; starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz, Lambert Wilson, Glynn Turman, Delroy Lindo, William H. Macy, Rainn Wilson |Opens today at area theaters
