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Sahara
Directed by Breck Eisner. Story: Some muddled mess about a missing ship in the desert and a mysterious plague. Running Time: 2hrs 4 minutes. Certificate 12A.
Wow. After seeing the trailer, I was expecting a mindless action movie. After seeing the preposterous tag-line: "Dirk Pitt - Adventure has a new name", I imagined a third-rate Indiana Jones. After seeing the BBC's four-star review, I was rather more upbeat and optimistic. Nothing prepared me for such a childish, slapdash waste of an evening. Hoik out the barbecue, it's roasting time.
Sahara is yet another contender for worst movie of the year, yet most people will think it's just fine - mindless entertainment and why-can't-that-snotty-reviewer-accept-it-for-what-it-is? Well, I'll agree it's mindless but it certainly didn't entertain me. If you liked National Treasure but thought it was a bit too much like a documentary, then Sahara is tailor-made for you. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: Guns, silly stunts and some bouncing Cruz cleavage. To enjoy this film you should be: lobotomised.
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Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Penélope Cruz, Steve Zahn, William H Macy, Lennie James, Lambert Wilson.
Where can I begin? I'll start with one of our homegrown actors, Lennie James. Now, we know he has talent because
he was palpably electric in Cold Feet and has contributed laudable performances in Snatch, Lucky Break and 24 Hour Party People.
The problem is, he's a Londoner. In Sahara, he talks like a Londoner trying to do an African accent and he moves like a
Londoner with a public school education. He is completely unconvincing as an African general who
"puts the war into warlord" (yes, they really did use that line).
Don Cheadle would have been much better, but of course he was busy destroying the Cockney accent in
Remember Matrix Reloaded? Remember that slimy French character - The Merovingian? Horrible, wasn't he - but the
restaurant scene really worked because of the sumptuousness of his speech, the way he took his time over every word,
savouring every sentence and building an image of arrogance and control. The success of that scene is largely down to
the direction and editing with the actor, Lambert Wilson, being the icing on the cake. In Sahara, Wilson is on his own,
without the support of competent direction, and delivers Merovingian Lite - resulting in a half-arsed mongrel of a
character that succeeds only in its mediocrity. Matthew McConaughey, the star, must have gone to Barbara Woodhouse
for his training as he seems modelled on a spaniel and Penélope Cruz, while acting well, does not have a chance to show
what she can do. William H Macy is very good - I've yet to see him put in a bad performance - but it's Steve Zahn,
as the nervy sidekick, who is without any shadow of a doubt the real star of the movie. Although his lines are average
at best, his delivery is superb and provided the only much-needed chuckles of the whole sorry affair.
Should I even bother going into the plot? Oh my God, it's so horrible - which will be spelt "saharable" from now on -
that I don't even want to revisit it. Some pestilent crap about finding a ship from the civil war that's lost in the desert
and curing a plague that no-one else cares about - if the film itself had been vaguely competent then I could have forgiven
some of the atrociousness of the plot, but as it is there isn't enough space or enthusiasm to go through even a fraction
of the reasons why the screenplay writers (all FOUR of them) should be banned from all movie studios for evermore.
So many inconsistencies, so many lazy continuity errors, so many moronically unlikely happenings, it had me with my
head in my hands on at least four occasions, wondering how on earth this tripe could have passed any kind of advance
screening without drugging the participants first. But, as is the way with this kind of unimaginative formulaic hogwash,
it will find its audience with that lucrative sector of society, People Who Like To See Shiny Things Go Bang,
and it will thus make lots of money and encourage the studios to make more vapid twaddle like it, and I will
have to find a whole load of new words that mean "shite" so I can review them.
