Sahara

Matthew McConaughey stars as explorer and adventurer Dirk Pitt in this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Clive Cussler. Pitt thinks he may have found both a fortune and the answer to a long-standing mystery when he discovers a rare coin in the waters of a river in West Africa. During the Civil War, an ironclad battleship with a valuable cargo went missing, and Pitt's theory is that the coin places the ship somewhere in the Sahara Desert. Pitt and his goofy sidekick, Al Giordino (Steve Zahn), set out to find it, but along the way they make the acquaintance of Dr. Eva Rojas (Penélope Cruz), a scientist and physician who is trying to determine the source of a strange and deadly disease sweeping the nation. As Eva joins Dirk and Al, they begin to wonder if the mysteries they're trying to uncover might be somehow linked. Sahara was only the second of Cussler's Dirk Pitt adventures to be adapted for the screen; the first, 1980's Raise the Titanic, was publicly dismissed by the author.

Review AMG:
Much of Sahara plays out in such a breezy, entertaining manner that you feel guilty for ragging on it, even if it misses its marks repeatedly through the film. Heavily mining the Indiana Jones School of Adventure Filmmaking, first-time director Breck Eisner (yes, the son of the Mouse House power player Michael Eisner) paints a pretty picture of exotic locales and thrilling sequences but never quite gets the magic to work with his cast. The banter between Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn doesn't click in a satisfying way, while Penélope Cruz fails to light the romantic spark of the flick no matter how hard she tries. McConaughey has the stuff to make a fine hero, but his Dirk Pitt needs more definition in both his charm and heroics. With four writers attached to the screenplay, it's obvious that the adaptation of Clive Cussler's novel went through more than its share of Hollywood potholes throughout the production. Still, with little digital trickery to sour its traditional aesthetics, Sahara does prove to be a competent cut of entertainment that's safe for the masses to buy into. — Jeremy Wheeler