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SAHARA by Tom McCurrie
At the beginning of the 21st Century, we seem to be in an era of diminished expectations. For instance, we don't expect much from our political institutions anymore, so when they finally do something halfway right (usually by accident), we're so shocked we praise them to high heaven. This tendency to overpraise can also apply to movies. Nowadays, when a movie does something halfway right, critics around the globe declare it a masterpiece on the order of CITIZEN KANE, or at least a mini-classic like TOUCH OF EVIL.
So now we come to the latest 100 million dollar opus to hit the local megaplex, the action-adventure SAHARA. Critics ranging from Roger Ebert to the New York Times have already bestowed high praise on this flick, but do they dig it because it's really good, or because it didn't suck as bad as they expected? Read on to find out what I think...
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Based on the bestselling book by Clive Cussler, and written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, John C. Richards and James V. Hart, SAHARA follows the exploits of Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey), an adventurer seeking a Civil War ironclad that somehow made it all the way to sub-Saharan Africa. While there, Pitt crosses paths with fetching Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), a WHO doctor trying to track down the cause of a deadly plague. When Rojas' life is threatened by a corrupt French businessman and a nasty African warlord, Pitt joins the good doctor's quest to uncover the source of this disease, a quest that, surprisingly enough, leads him closer to the mysterious ship.
SAHARA certainly has some cool things going for it. The actors are able, the scenery is spectacular, and director Breck Eisner (son of Michael) handles the action sequences with aplomb. If nothing else, Eisner's solid work as helmer shows that nepotism isn't all bad.
SAHARA also deals with provocative, challenging subjects (environmental pollution, African politics) seldom seen in popcorn action movies, and any flick that makes a usually mindless genre less mindless deserves some applause.
And it's refreshing to see one of the main baddies, Lambert Wilson's Yves Massarde, given a bit of dimension. Usually the bigger the budget, the more cardboard the villain. But Massarde is a pleasant departure from the norm. He may be a greedy cutthroat, but he draws the line at murdering helpless women, going out of his way to save Eva from his partner-in-crime, vicious warlord General Kazim (Lennie James).
Unfortunately, SAHARA is a letdown in many other ways, especially when compared to the film it aspires to be -- RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. As always, let's begin with the script. Pitt's quest to find the ironclad/plague source is littered with too many conveniences -- our heroes just happen to stumble across the "map" they need, as well as the ironclad itself, making them seem less like heroes since they don't have to struggle to achieve their goals. RAIDERS meanwhile lays out the steps to find the Ark very clearly: find the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, decipher the headpiece to find out how long the staff needs to be, then use that staff in an underground map room to find out where the Ark is buried. So Indy accomplishing these goals doesn't seem convenient, while his struggle to achieve them makes him more heroic.
SAHARA has other contrivances as well, especially when Pitt and his sidekick Al [Steve Zahn] escape from the back of a moving pick-up truck...with the back of the pick-up still handcuffed to their wrists! The two guards in the cab drive on obliviously, apparently both legally blind and hearing impaired. Even in an over-the-top action movie, there needs to be some physical logic; if not, there is no suspension of disbelief, and thus no emotional investment in the characters.
Let's look at the structure of SAHARA. The first thirty minutes of set-up are sluggish, with little tension or conflict. Pitt is after a Confederate ironclad for scientific purposes, which isn't that gripping unless you watch the History Channel. (Pitt doesn't know there's a treasure on board until he discovers it at the climax, so we don't even have the lure of money, as in NATIONAL TREASURE, to spark our interest.) And Eva is investigating a disease affecting villagers in Nigeria, something too localized to terrify audiences outside the region. Neither plotline has high enough stakes to reel us in, a bad way to begin any movie, and a Screenwriting 101 mistake it took four writers to make.
Now let's look at the opening of RAIDERS. Right away Indy risks his life avoiding booby-traps to retrieve a golden statue, then must escape certain death by outrunning Belloq's ambush. Life and death stakes are the highest stakes there are, producing the greatest suspense - and the greatest interest. These stakes are raised soon after when we learn the Ark of the Covenant is well on its way to falling into the hands of the Nazis, who will use it to enslave the world. Now everyone's life-and-death is at stake, not just Indy's. RAIDERS' First Act does what First Acts are supposed to do, grab you by the collar and not let go.
Raising the stakes in your script is always a good idea; a structure of rising tension makes the story more engrossing as it goes along (you certainly don't want the opposite). But in SAHARA, we're already past the mid-point before we learn that the plague is a worldwide threat. Establishing this threat earlier (i.e. in the First Act like RAIDERS) would have made SAHARA engrossing much sooner.
Of course, SAHARA bungles explaining the nature of this threat. The plague is actually waterborne pollution, and, according to the script, if it makes its way down the Niger River into the Atlantic, it will destroy ocean life worldwide. But this threat is tossed off in a quick patch of dialogue that's easy to misunderstand. Why will the pollution be unstoppable if it reaches the Atlantic, growing out-of-control at an exponential rate? A line mentioning the ocean's "oxygen" seems cursory and unconvincing. The confusion over this threat diminishes its impact, and the story's suspense. RAIDERS avoids this problem by having a scene in the First Act explain the history of the Ark and its potential threat in crystal clear terms.
SAHARA has other problems besides the script. It lacks a truly outstanding action set-piece like the truck chase in RAIDERS. The beached ironclad defending itself against Kazim's army is clever, but this "battle" is over much too quickly to impress. Other set-pieces (the motorboat attack on the Niger, the rescue of Eva) are effective but lack the "Wow, never seen that before" factor that gives a film strong word-of-mouth. And still others (Pitt fighting a henchman as a helicopter spins overhead, a chopper shooting at Pitt while he drives an antique roadster) are a little too reminiscent of action scenes in RAIDERS and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE respectively.
With the exception of Massarde, SAHARA's characters also lack depth. Pitt is an intrepid adventurer and that's it. Eva is an intrepid doctor and that's it. Only Zahn brings any flavor to his character, and that's because he's coasting on the goofy persona he already established in previous films. Now it's not as if RAIDERS' characters have Shakespearean dimension, either, but at least they have memorable idiosyncrasies -- "heroic" Indy has a pathological fear of snakes, for instance.
Having little romance between Pitt and Eva, at least till the very last moment, also diminishes interest. Romance provides a movie with sexual tension and compelling conflict (think of Indy and Marion butting heads, and locking lips, in RAIDERS), so not punching this element up is a missed opportunity.
SAHARA is a passable movie that seems better than it is because so many recent action flicks have been turkeys. But does not being so bad make you good? Not in my book.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles and is currently writing a novel about Spaghetti Westerns.
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