In Sahara, the star is romantically matched with Penelope Cruz, playing Eva Rojas, a fearless, fiery-eyed doctor for the WHO. The movie shrewdly avoids forcing the pair to certify their chemistry with phony midaction clinches. That each saves the other's life more than once should speak for itself. Once again, Cruz's fiery physical intensity goes only so far in compensating for her language barrier, but most of her sparse dialogue is watered-down doctor talk.
Dirk meets Eva in Lagos, Nigeria, where he leads a crew salvaging Nigerian relics from a vessel operated by the National Underwater Marine Agency. She is there to investigate the source of a possible plague that may emanate from the Niger River, the same waterway the ironclad ship Dirk that dreams of finding may have traveled two centuries earlier.
When Eva finds evidence that Mali, already torn by civil war, may be the source of the plague, she is menaced by a hooded agent dispatched by that country's reigning warlord. In the nick of time, Dirk comes to the rescue and takes her aboard the marine agency ship. The expedition's French corporate sponsor, Yves Massarde (Lambert Wilson), slowly emerges as the film's conflicted villain, a do-gooder contaminated by greed.
After Eva and her colleagues disobey orders and sneak into Mali, she is again rescued by Dirk and his wisecracking sidekick, Al Giordino (Steve Zahn). The treasure hunt is put on hold while the three intrepid adventurers uncover a toxic-waste nightmare that could escalate into a global catastrophe.
Even with order so strictly imposed, Sahara has more story than it can comfortably accommodate. It brashly, shrewdly pretends otherwise. As it lights out into Indiana Jones territory, it appreciates the African landscapes with an adventurer's discriminating eye.
The transitions between action (an early speedboat battle crackles with wit and energy) and wisecracking banter (McConaughey's Dirk and Zahn's Al, swapping time-honored jokes, make natural sidekicks) are seamless. A robust soundtrack (by Clint Mansell) seasoned with Southern rock 'n' roll and African pop underlines the jaunty mood. It's all sleight of hand, of course, but Sahara lopes into the distance with the easygoing swagger of a con man who has just pulled off a US$100 million scam.
RSS