accessAtlanta

'Sahara': It's a beauty of a mirage

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Pulp novelist Clive Cussler may not have been trying for a blend of Indiana Jones and James Bond when he wrote Sahara, but that is what the movie of his adventure yarn has become. Far-fetched and involving, this could be the start of a lucrative, audience-pleasing franchise.

Paramount Pictures 'Sahara' B The verdict: Summer starts early with this entertaining, though preposterous African yarn, a cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. Director: Breck Eisner Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz Run time: 127 minutes Release date: April 8, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for action violence. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Sahara"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Matthew McConaughey is Cussler's treasure hunter hero Dirk Pitt, star explorer for the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA). Together with his longtime comic sidekick Al Giordano (fuzzy-headed Steve Zahn), he has become obsessed with finding an ironclad Confederate ship and increasingly convinced it somehow crossed the ocean and is now buried in the Sahara desert. That is the sort of credibility-stretcher you're going to have to buy to enjoy this movie. Just go with it.

Meanwhile a dedicated World Health Organization physician who looks great in tank tops (Penelope Cruz) is tracking down a mysterious plague in Mali, which — cue the James Bond music — threatens to pollute the world's water supply. Feel free to bet that Eurotrash baddie Lambert Wilson (Matrix Reloaded) is behind the crisis.

For a first-time director and son of exiting Disney CEO Michael, Breck Eisner manages this logistics-heavy production efficiently, salting the story with heart-thumping action sequences at regular intervals.

Cussler fans may quibble over what got lost in the novel's transfer to the screen, but Sahara will probably tide everyone else over until the summer blockbusters arrive.

Cruz stays mum on costar

Out on tour, gamely promoting Sahara ("I love Sahara. I always wanted to do an action-adventure movie that was good for the whole family," says Spanish film star Penelope Cruz, with a little too practiced a delivery), the olive-skinned diminutive beauty looks stunning, despite a sudden illness that has her interviews running late.

She will dutifully talk about her role as a World Health Organization doctor in the sun-and-sand epic, but Cruz's dark eyes sparkle at the mention of Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar, who featured her in such films as Live Flesh and All About My Mother, jump-starting her career. Now, as her stock in Hollywood is rising, she will be returning to Spain, committed to appearing in Almodovar's next three films.

"The ones I've read, not only have I said 'yes,' I've jumped around my house screaming from happiness," Cruz enthuses. "I think he's a genius. I think the way he sees the world is amazing. No one writes the way Pedro writes."

She also swoons at the mention of the Italian film Don't Move, in which she plays a hotel maid who falls in love with a married doctor who raped her. Just beginning to be released in the United States, it won Cruz Italy's equivalent of a best actress Oscar for her performance — in Italian.

"It's a beautiful movie," she says. "Emotionally, I got rid of a lot of my own monsters. I confronted a lot of things and let a lot of things come out."

Cruz, 30, has managed to forge a career shuttling between international art films and the commerce of Hollywood. "You have to follow your own integrity. For me, I don't make less or more of a big studio movie. I take it seriously, whether I'm in a small independent film or a big super-action movie in America," she says. "I love doing drama like Don't Move, but it is not that I need every character to be that emotionally demanding."

So far at least, Cruz says she has been able to avoid the pressures of the box office. "I don't have to get into that game as an actress," she argues. "It's good to learn about the business, but when I'm on the set, I don't want to think about the results, I don't want to think about numbers."

Cruz has a habit of getting romantically involved with her film costars, most prominently with Tom Cruise on 2001's Vanilla Sky and now with Matthew McConaughey on Sahara.

Says McConaughey, "I like working with her because she's so (long pause) innocently honest. She doesn't have an affected bone in her body. She knows what she likes, knows what she needs. She's not a diva, but she is a woman who very much respects herself and respects her craft and loves to work. So we enjoyed working together and it was easy working together, yeah."

But Cruz refuses to discuss McConaughey and she absolutely shuts down at the mention of Cruise.

"I really don't want to talk about anything that is going to take us away from talking about Sahara," she says tersely. "I'm traveling around the world and working very hard to promote the movie because I really believe in it, and then to be asked about something like that that then becomes the quote of the interview, so it becomes about my private life, I feel it's my responsibility to protect against that."

Oh, well, it was worth a try.