Movie Review: Sahara

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Enjoyable but mindless popcorn flick

Cons: A bit too much coincidence in the plot

The Bottom Line:

Fun mindless action

I ultimately enjoyed

For light film it is

Treasure Hunting in Africa

I always intended to see the movie Sahara, yes, even though it was getting bad reviews.  Somehow, it never quite happened until I spotted it playing on TV recently.  I can see where people wouldn’t have liked it, but I enjoyed it for the mindless action flick it was.

Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) is currently in Africa hunting for a treasure for his boss Jim Sandecker (William H. Macy).  Along the way, his path crosses with Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) who is there with the World Health Organization.  She has recently found a plague affecting certain villages in the area.

Just as Dirk is about to leave the continent, he gets a lead on a Civil War treasure he’s been tracking for years.  Heading out with his best friend/hunting partner Al (Steve Zahn), he is determined to find it before he heads back to the states.  But when his ship is attacked just after parting from Eva, he finds himself stranded, fearing that she might be in danger.  Can he help?  Will he find the treasure?

Now, if you are going into this film expecting anything serious or realistic, don’t bother.  This movie is designed to be a fun action flick.  You know the kind – the pop corn flicks where you sit down and enjoy without thinking about it too hard.  And if you do that, you’ll have a good time.

There are some great action sequences and plenty of suspenseful scenes.  I was glued to the TV for several of them wondering how our heroes would get out of it alive.  I never doubted that they would, but the odds were certainly against them.  Were all these scenes realistic?  Not on your life.  Honestly, I didn’t care because they were fun.

Likewise, the story featured some pretty major coincidences.  Actually, this one did bother me a little, but for the most part I didn’t mind.

All of the action sequences were well done, and I bought all of the stunts I was watching.  Likewise, when the movie did call for special effects, those worked, too.

And the acting was good.  There’s nothing that will blow you away here, but I bought these people as these characters.  There was certainly nothing to pull me out of the movie.

If you go into this movie expecting something amazing, you will be disappointed.  But if you go in expecting a fun time, you’ll find you quite enjoy Sahara.  And that’s all the movie is trying to be in the first place.