Sahara, directed by Breck Eisner, is an adventure film hyped as an Indiana Jones clone, based on the 1992 novel of the same title by Clive Cussler. The plot is overshadowed by action, with guns blazing, in which the American hero, Dirk Pitt (played by Matthew McConaughey), Pitt's longtime sidekick Al Giordino (played by Steve Zahn), and World Health Organization (WHO) physician Dr. Eva Rojas (played by Penélope Cruz) vanquish the bad guys. After a prologue in which the Texas, a mythical Confederate submarine, breaks free from the Union blockade of Richmond in 1865, the scene shifts to the contemporary port of Lagos, Nigeria. (Despite the various captioned locations in Mali and Nigeria, the filming is mostly in Morocco.) Former Admiral James Sandecker (played by William H. Macy) is a treasure hunter trolling the seas for lost cargos on behalf of the privately funded National Marine Underwater Agency (NUMA). (Cussler actually financed and founded NUMA, which recently found the Titanic's equally ill-fated sister ship, the Carpathia). Pitt has been seeking the sub, known as the Ship of Death, which has never been recovered; he salivates over rumors that the cargo consisted of gold being smuggled out of the country. Sandecker, with his big ship docked outside Lagos, is about to leave for an Australian destination when Pitt borrows a small motorboat from him to go up the Niger River in order to follow a lead up after a gold Confederate coin surfaces in Lagos. Finding several unexplained deaths in Lagos, Dr. Rojas believes that the source of the plague is to be found somewhere in neighboring Mali. Unsurprisingly, the two quests become one when the source of the plague turns out to be the contamination of an underground river, the remnant of a once-mighty tributary on which the Texas sailed until running aground. However, various political agendas litter the landscape along the way, starting with the devastation of Richmond as the Union army routed the Confederacy. WHO politics is highlighted when Dr. Rojas begs her superiors to permit a visit to Mali, which is embroiled in civil war, and they reason that such a trip is not safe enough for epidemiological research. Mali, in turn, is ruled by autocratic General Kazim (played by Lennie James), with the Tuareg opposition hoping for CIA support. Admiral Sandecker is portrayed as kissing the ass of his financial supporters, including a sinister Frenchman, Yves Massarde (played by Lambert Wilson). Massarde backs Mali's dictator, who in turn permits him to operate a suspicious nuclear waste dump. Why does the world take no note of the existence of a possible pandemic, of a brutal dictatorship, or of possible environmental disaster? Because, as one African character says, "Nobody cares about Africa." Besides the possibility of nuclear waste falling into the wrong hands, the immediate environmental threat is that poisoned waters, now polluting the Niger River, are predicted to reach the Atlantic and even New York within six months if our heroes prove unsuccessful. The political intrigue is not complete without a bungling American ambassador (played by Patrick Malahide), who ultimately takes credit for what the heroes of the film accomplish over his bureaucratic mindset. If Sahara launches a new genre of action films from Cussler's prolific pen, the politics will have to be more focused next time or else the good-and-evil clichés will be worn out. MH
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