Sahara

Year: 2005

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Eisner

Review

a pastiche of national treasure, indiana jones and every other adventure film ever made. steve zahn is one of the more enjoyable comic actors making films right now. the film is fairly enjoyable overall, but does lose some momentum about two-thirds of the way through the film because it adds a couple layers of plot. generally i’m in favor of plot, but in a film like this it’s sometimes better to keep things simple. clint mansell does the music, but it didn’t really sound like his stuff from the aronofsky films (requiem and pi) or anything he did with pop will eat itself. the soundtrack actually features more classic rock than anything else, but it does offer up some west african music, presumably by clint mansell. if so that would place him in with company like peter gabriel, damon albarn and david byrne – members of a group who struck out on their own and were inspired by world music. penelope cruz is hot, but was surprisingly comfortable in the desert wearing more than either zahn or mcconaughey. oh well. some of the more fantastic elements of the film were hard to believe even in the context of an action/adventure film. armor piercing bullets going through two feet of steel, while cannonballs bounce off without making a mark, for example, is a bit hard to swallow. also, at 124 minutes it could have used some trimming.

Watched in theater