 May
2005
This month's reviews:
Sahara
OK, how’s this for a crazy movie plot: It’s the middle of the
Civil War, and there’s a sea battle raging between the Union and the
Confederacy. A Confederate ship manages to escape from the Union
forces and, miraculously, crosses the Atlantic. Reaching Africa, it
encounters an incredibly powerful, once-in-a-century storm and is
blown off course and into the Niger River in West Africa. Somehow
the ship makes it all the way up the Niger into what is now the
country of Mali, where it runs aground and eventually becomes part
of the native folklore of the region. Flash forward about 140 years.
Dirk and Al are two swashbuckling men who work for NUMA (the
National Underwater and Marine Agency), which tries to uncover
sunken artifacts. They take it upon themselves to find this “ship of
the desert,” in this case not a camel. In the process, they hook up
with Eva, a doctor working for the World Health Organization who is
attempting to find the source of a plague which is killing people in
the region. Eva, of course, is beautiful and resourceful.
Sound preposterous? It is. Sahara is sort of a
cross between the James Bond and Indiana Jones movies, minus the sex
found in Bond. But if you can willingly suspend your disbelief,
you’ll probably have a good time watching this movie. It has some
negatives, but the positives outweigh them. Here’s why:
On the positive side:
- Acting: Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and Penelope
Cruz do excellent jobs of portraying the characters. They’re
energetic and believable in their unbelievable adventures. Eva is
not a Bond girl. She uses her brain.
- Setting: A good deal of the movie was filmed in Morocco
and has gorgeous scenes of the Sahara Desert and realistic-looking
vistas of river, plain, and village.
- Excitement: The movie never slows down and has lots of
nail-biting episodes, some of which are at least as good as those
in the Indiana Jones films.
- Dialogue: Sahara has some of the sharpest, funniest
movie dialogue in a long time. The characters actually talk as
real people talk, and there’s not much objectionable language. At
a particularly dangerous moment, for example, the wisecracking Al
says: “I just wonder when we’re going to have to sit down and
evaluate our decision-making paradigm.” Great timing.
- Values: Sahara doesn’t deal much with issues. However,
Dirk, Al, and Eva are the good guys, and they and the other good
folks are kind and helpful. The movie looks straight at Africa
without condescension and allows us a glimpse of other cultures.
On the negative side:
- Implausibility: As noted above, the premise is hard to
accept (though meticulously worked out once you do).
- Language: I know I said there isn’t much objectionable
language here, but there is a bit. Jesus’ name is used in vain
once, and there are four or five instances of the “Oh my _____”
misuse of the Lord’s name. There are a few mild epithets.
- Violence: The film is rated PG-13 and has a number of
violent (though not gratuitously so) scenes. This isn’t a movie
for children.
Clive Cussler, author of the Dirk Pitt best-selling adventure
novels on which Sahara is based, said he didn’t have
sex or four-letter words in his books. The producers have strayed a
little from his guidelines, but not far. It’s getting harder and
harder these days to find anything to see that doesn’t dishonor the
Lord or offend us. Sahara is one of the few pictures
out there that at least passes the minimal test.
Rating: 2 ¾ stars
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Index of movie
reviews...
(2003 reviews through present)
Jay Maurer, a member of West Side Presbyterian Church, is
a long-term movie buff and former college teacher of The Film as
Literature. He has written movie reviews for The Good News
(West Side newsletter) since 2002.
If you have comments or questions
about the movie (or play) reviews, please contact Jay at
dramachap@msn.com.
Ratings are expressed in
increments of ¼ star.
A rating of 2 ½ stars or higher is meant to be a recommendation.
1 star: poor
2 stars: minimally satisfactory
3 stars: quite good
4 stars: superb
Criteria for determining the ratings:
- Reflection, either explicit or implicit, of Christian values,
including suitability of language and lack of gratuitous violence
- Quality of the acting
- Originality
- Unity of the entire picture
- Substance, or in the words of C.S. Lewis, weight
Other Christian movie review Web sites:
Plugged In Online
ChristianityTodayMovies.com
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