Ohh, I’ll have to check that out, the name’s unfamiliar to me. I know there’s a deleted scene on the DVD that shows Kitty Mannock’s plane going down, but it never got connected to the rest of the story in any way–except for a very fortuitous plane in the middle of the desert, of course. 
Yup, got to go with the crowd and disagree, EC. Sahara’s a fun little ride.
I got a kick out of the some of the music choices on the soundtrack.
One of the prelude sections of the book is about the character’s last flight, and, iirc, they find her diary ( and quote extracts, or talk about it) at the crash site as well…
Guys, you got me all wrong! I’m a guy who likes softcore porn! I’m REALLY good at suspending my disbelief! For softcore porn, one frequently has to suspend one’s entire forebrain – with prejudice. I guess the thing is, “Sahara” struck me as being way too much like softcore porn, only with lush desert landscapes as the eye candy instead of the lush bodies of B-movie actresses. And fight scenes and chase scenes substituting for sex scenes. All of it carelessly stitched together.
The thing was, the people who has Sahara clearly had tons of money. And they put together a movie that was little better than “Day of the Warrior” except for all the nice location scenery. It was an OK ride, but it should have been a much BETTER ride, considering the resources they had to work with.
Some movies have great screenplays and are ruined by actors too lazy to put the effort into delivering their lines for maximum entertainment. Sahara is the opposite. The actors take an unworkable screenplay and they make it work for about the first half of the film. Then it falls apart. But some of the early parts, such as the boat chase scene where they “do a Panama”, are perfect.
As for the screenwriters, I rather imagine that they were throwing in glaringly obvious absurdities just so folks like us could have fun complaining about them.
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The industrial waste from the plant seeps into the river. If it reaches the ocean, then all sea life will die, and eventually all life on Earth will perish. It would seem that that includes the bad guys, so why are they dumping the waste in the river too begin with?
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Once the geeky scientist informs the authorities that the river is full of toxic waste, they’re somehow able to stop it from reaching the ocean. But how? The only way would be to dam the river, which would take more than a few days.
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The evil French industrialist wants to make his little incineration operation top secret, yet in name is written on the wall in 20-foot-tall letters. Oops.
Other movies where the screenwriters may have had similar philosophies: Core, Wild Wild West, Armageddon
Sahara is the only Cussler novel I’ve ever read, and I did that for lack of anything else to read about. It was fluff and largely forgettable (except who can forget the Lincoln dies in the Sahara in a Confederate ironclad bit), and it’s probably why I’ve never read any other Cussler books.
The movie was even worse. Completely forgettable, incredibly dimwitted… who knew that it is possible to get tired from working to suspend disbelief that long. If you are into Matthew McConaghy, like my wife, maybe you’ve got an excuse for sitting and looking at this thing for hours.
For me, Sahara is all about the scene of them sailing the jury-rigged wreck of an airplane across the desert. There’s just no way to watch that scene and not have a part of me go “Wooooo!” The rest of the movie is just the necessary setup for that scene and denouement.
While she is staring at Mat, you could keep your eye on Penélope Cruz.
30th post and nobody mentions using a civil war cannon to shoot down a helicopter?
I dunno, but it’s no place a Civil War ironclad could conceivably have stranded. Or any other kind of boat or ship, for that matter.
You haven’t been following along.
I’m trying to remember the book, but as I recall, the Texas sailed up the Niger just because they had to go somewhere, what with having the entire Confederate treasury and the real Abraham Lincoln captive on board.
And as a small aside, Pitt’s longtime obsession with the Texas was added for the benefit of the movie. Cussler’s books usually begin with some ancient secret’s origin–in the case of Sahara, the disappearances of the Texas and of Kitty Mannock (who was the pilot of the airplane-cum-land yacht). It’s been a while since I read the book, but I’m pretty sure Pitt and Giordino end up in Africa because they’re tracking the contamination in the river, not treasure-hunting or specifically looking for a Civil War ironclad. And then, of course, they end up chasing after the hot doctor and a missing team of UN personnel because otherwise the book doesn’t go anywhere. 
Oh, I follow it, I just don’t buy it.
Um, figure they had five minutes or so to restore it to operability. What’s the big deal? 
A majority of the movies produced these days require some degree of suspension of belief. Once you’ve done that – in for a penny, in for a pound.
When I first saw this flick I remarked that in both this and another out about the same time – National Treasure – you had guns and gunpowder from 100+ year old ships stored in extreme environments (the artcic, the Sahara) being used without any problems or misfire. Gee, I’d a thunk that sitting arounmd that long with all the sand and heat (or ice and cold) would lead to some deterioration. I can’t leave things sitting around for 10 years and expect them to work. I don’t buy that it was “preserved by its environment” They told us the same thing would preserve the Titanic in perfect shape, and look how that turned out (And Cussler was one of the tellers – in “Raise the Titanic”)
If the use of a Civil War cannon is your only or your chief beef, however, you haven’t been exercising your critical faculties.
I remember being so bummed when I read that the actual Titanic was broken, and therefore could not be raised, no matter how hard anybody worked. 
But if you look closely in the opening credits that are nothing but a shout-out to the fans of the Pitt books, you’ll see that according to an article on the wall, NUMA went ahead and raised her anyway.
It wasn’t just the broken-in-two part – it was that everyone (Cussler and Arthur C. Clarke included) assured us that the Titanic was going to be perfectly preserved by that cold inert water down there. Nobody that I can recall said anything about the “rusticles” that formed on all the surfaces. Pristine, my butt.
And, yeah, I caught the clipping about the Titanic in the opening, too. Cute touch. But what responsible scientist/technogeek leaves his bunsen burners running when there’s no one in the lab?
Speaking of which. I wonder why the director thought it was necessary to make Dirk a former Navy SEAL as opposed to his being an Air Force officer as in the books?