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Movies / On DVD / Sahara
Sahara

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Sahara (2005)

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Reviews Counted:168

Fresh:64

Rotten:104

Average Rating:5.1/10

Consensus: A mindless adventure flick with a preposterous plot.

Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for action violence

Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

Theatrical Release:08-04-2005

Synopsis: Dirk (Matthew McConaughey) and Al (Steve Zahn) have been friends since kindergarten, having also gone through college and the Navy together. The two now work for a former admiral traveling around... Dirk (Matthew McConaughey) and Al (Steve Zahn) have been friends since kindergarten, having also gone through college and the Navy together. The two now work for a former admiral traveling around the world and salvaging treasures from the sea with the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). In his spare time, Dirk is obsessed with the 150-year-old mystery of the Texas, an Ironclad battleship that reportedly disappeared from Richmond, Virginia during a Civil War battle and turned up in Africa. When a Confederate coin--allegedly one of only five minted--surfaces in Mali, Dirk and Al plan to travel there from Lagos, Nigeria on the admiral's yacht to investigate. Meanwhile, in Lagos, Dirk meets Eva (Penelope Cruz), a doctor for the World Health Organization (WHO) who believes that there is a plague building in Mali. Since the WHO is unable to find another way into the war-torn country, Dirk and Al give Eva and her colleague a lift up the river. Once in Mali, Dirk, Al, and Eva quickly find themselves embroiled in trouble as she pursues the source of the disease. Meanwhile, Dirk and Al search for the Texas. Based on a novel by Clive Cussler, SAHARA is a rollicking thrill ride through exotic locales, including everything from high-speed boat chases to helicopter pursuits to jeeps racing through the desert to camel rides. A warlord and a greedy French businessman prove to be formidable villains for the trio. McConaughey fits the bill as gentleman and adventurer Dirk, while Zahn holds his own as likeable sidekick Al. Cruz is feisty as independent Eva. Director Breck Eisner's theatrical feature film debut also features William H. Macy as the admiral. [More]

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Penélope Cruz, Steve Zahn, Delroy Lindo

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Penélope Cruz, Steve Zahn, Delroy Lindo, William H. Macy, Rainn Wilson

Director: Breck Eisner

Director: Breck Eisner
Screenwriter: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Delroy Oppenheimer, John C. Richards, James V. Hart
Producer: Howard L. Baldwin, Mace Neufeld, Stephanie Austin, Karen Baldwin
Composer: Clint Mansell
Studio: Paramount Pictures

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Reviews for Sahara

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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A really, really dumb film, but it's lots and lots of fun and entirely lacking in malice.

Full Review Source: FilmFocus | comment Comment
04/23/05
Scott Andrews
Scott Andrews
FilmFocus

Highly entertaining romp from the pen of airport pulp king Clive Cussler.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/05/05
Paul Arendt
Paul Arendt
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This is a big, lively romp, filmed in a lushly expansive epic style even though it's basically low-rent James Bond.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
04/06/05
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

In short, Sahara is a hugely enjoyable, old fashioned adventure movie of the sort that they really don't make anymore. It's worth seeing just for the chemistry between its three leads.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
04/09/05
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
04/01/06
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Breck Eisner's youthful, fresh grasp of the high-adventure genre. This should have been his audition reel for helming 007/21.

Full Review Source: FilmsInReview.com | comment Comment
03/12/05
Victoria Alexander
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

How seriously can you take a movie in which Penelope Cruz, wearing a bucket of eye make-up, plays a World Health Organization physician who investigates plagues?

Full Review Source: Denton Record Chronicle (TX) | comment 2 Comments
04/07/05
Boo Allen
Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

Even the brain-dead National Treasure tried harder than this.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment 2 Comments
04/07/05
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Steve Zahn rocks! Though at times the film certainly stretches the believability factor, it is always engaging, always fun.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Report Card | comment Comment
04/06/05
Ross Anthony
Ross Anthony
Hollywood Report Card

The casting is so strong and the overall filmmaking flair of the movie is so captivating that it basically works, perhaps even well enough to join its producer Mace Neufeld's Tom Clancy adaptations as a major new movie franchise.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
04/07/05
William Arnold
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sahara is pretty to look at but lacks the adrenaline charge of the movies it's so obviously trying to emulate.

Full Review Source: Sympatico.ca | comment Comment
04/08/05
Angela Baldassarre
Angela Baldassarre
Sympatico.ca

In one spit-take-inducing moment, our heroes convert a wrecked prop plane into a desert sailboat, which they race across the sand to the strains of 'Magic Carpet Ride.'

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
04/18/05
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

No one seems to know what they're doing, or worse, much care.

Full Review Source: Las Vegas Weekly | comment Comment
04/07/05
Josh Bell
Josh Bell
Las Vegas Weekly

With this strong of a cast this film should have been much better.

Full Review Source: Spectrum (St. George, Utah) | comment Comment
06/07/05
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

This is a Mystery Science Theater 3000 special.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
04/07/05
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

It's about good ol' boys on a rip-snorting adventure, and to that end, it succeeds.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
04/08/05
Amy Biancolli
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle

If Sahara weren't quite so dumb, it might have been a lot of fun.

Full Review Source: SPLICEDWire | comment Comment
04/06/05
Rob Blackwelder
Rob Blackwelder
SPLICEDWire

With a running time of a few minutes over two hours, Sahara sputters along as slowly as a trek across the desert.

Full Review Source: Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) | comment Comment
04/08/05
Bob Bloom
Bob Bloom
Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

As barren as the actual Sahara, but without the grand lure, this movie is plain old stoo-pid...

Full Review Source: Blunt Review | comment Comment
04/08/05
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Blunt Review
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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Latest News for Sahara

February 21, 2008: Box Office Guru Preview: Vantage Point Aims For #1 Debut
A terrorist attack is played out through multiple perspectives in the high-octane political thriller Vantage Point which leads the four-pack of new openers which also includes... More...

January 14, 2008: Nu Image/Millennium, Lionsgate Teaming Up for New Conan the Barbarian
It's been rumored for some time, and now it's finally official: Conan the Barbarian is heading back to the big screen. More...

February 05, 2007: Novelist and Producer Point Fingers in Court; Whose Fault Was "Sahara?"
Accusations are flying between author Clive Cussler and producer Philip Anschutz over who's to blame for the 2005 adventure stinker, "Sahara," which cost an estimated... More...

January 18, 2007: McConaughey is "Magnum, P.I."?
It's been in development so long, you may have given up waiting on any casting news -- or forgotten about it entirely -- but IGN Movies reports that "We Are Marshall"... More...

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