Movie Review - Sahara

One movie my sister Ellie recommended to me was "Sahara." It stars Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, and Steve Zahn. It is a comedy action movie. For my sister, I think the big attraction was seeing McConaughey flex his muscles in the movie. My sister pointed out that guys would enjoy some nice shots of Ms. Cruz. After promising her I'd get around to watching it, I finally sat down yesterday and watched the movie. I found the movie very entertaining. It has plenty of action, some nice laughs, and an easy to follow plot. It is also only 2 hours long which makes it easy to sit through. The story is McConaughey and Zahn play two deep sea treasure hunters while Ms. Cruz is a doctor for the World Health Organization. The two come together when McConaughey and Cruz are drafted to give Cruz a ride to Mali so she and her boss can investigate what they think initially is an outbreak of an unknown plague. After McConaughey and Zahn drop Cruz off in Mali, they go off in search of a Confederate Civil War ironclad that somehow made it to Africa (to be honest this is highly unlikely but it does make an interesting story) and then travelled along the Niger River inland until it became stuck far inland. The crew of the ironclad all die of unknown causes. McConaughey and Zahn run into unexpected opposition from the Malian military forces who attack their boat. Cruz is also attacked and her boss is murdered by the Malian Army. McConaughey realizes the Malian forces that attacked them were after Cruz and go off to help her arriving in time to save her. The three then seek to escape the Malian military by fleeing to Toureq rebel territory. It is here Zahn finds a drawing that depicts the lost ironclad. It is also here that Cruz discovers that people aren't dying of a plaque at all. Instead, it a deadly toxin that is getting into the water supply some how. The three then go off in search of the ironclad which is located by an abandoned fort. They find the fort and while looking around, they discover an unknown waste disposal plant that they break into and find out is causing deadly toxins to seep into the underground water supply. The director of the plant doesn't want people to know of the plant and it was he that tried to stop Cruz from entering Mali and identifying what was making people sick. When the three adventurers break into the plant the plant manager captures the three. He keeps Cruz while sending McConaughey and Zahn to the evil President of Mali who presumably wants to kill them after they killed 7 or 8 of his soldiers rescuing Cruz. The two escape and go back to rescue Cruz. When the two reappear, the plant manager decides to destroy the plant and take Cruz with him to presumably keep her quiet. McConaughey succeeds in rescuing Cruz after fighting an evil turbaned fiend. Zahn manages to keep the plant from exploding so they can presumably stop the toxins from entering the water supply. The action doesn't end there. They still have to find the lost ironclad which is carrying a fortune in Confederate gold.

While leaving the plant, the three are attacked by the evil ruthless Malian President in his attack helicopter. The three escape to the fort where McConaughey conceives of a plan to foil the evil President. They use explosives to uncover the ironclad which they promptly climb into. Once inside, they discover the evil President's attack helicopter has armor piercing bullets. They decide to shoot the President's helicopter down using one of the cannon in the ironclad (the story does get a bit farfetched at this point, I mean these folks are really going to know how to fire an Civil War cannon, come on). After one misfire, with the ruthless President deciding he is going to take our heroes out himself, McConaughey manages to fire the cannon without killing himself. The shell goes through the helicopter windshield, lands inside the helicopter, and after the few suspenseful seconds, explodes. Good bye evil President. Naturally, after that the evil Malian Army surrenders and our adventurer's Toureq friends show up. Lastly, McConaughey gets the girl. We see him at the beach with Cruz. Cruz undoubtedly delights her male fans at this point by wearing a very nice two piece bikini. The movie ends with them rollicking playfully in the sea.

While the story does get seriously farfetched at times as I noted, it does move along, and has some good laughs. I found it a fun movie and would definitely recommend it anyone. The movie is now out on DVD. Cheers!