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Take yourself back one hundred and forty years, give or take. To prevent the capture of a precious cargo, a Civil War armored battleship (or ironclad) sets itself adrift into the Atlantic Ocean. The theory is that at that time part of the Sahara close to the Niger River was full of rich farmland and small rivers. The battleship enters into the Niger River and up into Mali, travels along some smaller rivers that eventually dry up, and over time, the ship is buried by the sand.
Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) is an explorer with the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) who helps find lost treasures from the bottom of the ocean. His ultimate goal, however, is to find the aforementioned ironclad, which is rumored to protect a few Confederate Gold coin samples.
Dr. Eva Rojas (Penélope Cruz) is a doctor with the World Health Organization, who has discovered signs of a possible plague coming out of Mali, which she is determined to identify and stop – even more so when she is attacked and nearly killed for beginning her investigation.
After saving Eva’s life, Dirk is shown a U.S. Confederate coin that apparently came out of Mali, indicating his ironclad just might be there. He and Eva head up along the Niger to Mali together aboard his boss’s yacht.
As Eva finds more signs of the sickness in Mali, Mali’s evil dictator, General Kazim, is determined to keep foreign agencies from meddling in his country and tries to have Eva killed.
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This story has a rather improbable premise, especially considering a little Internet research on the Sahara reveals no evidence of rivers other than the Niger ever existing in Mali. That aside, this is still a fun story. It is also nice to see an action film set in Africa for a change.
Director Breck Eisner (Taken) does a good job of adding realism to an otherwise improbable story, keeping the action going with scenes such as an amazing high-speed yacht chase, and adding tension to the slower scenes by making you wonder what will happen next —despite the somewhat predictable nature of the plot.
Matthew McConaughey (Contact, Frailty) does a pretty good job in the lead, although the character is not particularly outstanding: kind of a textbook Indiana Jones-wannabe.
Penélope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Blow) proves her strength and agility as the other lead ,as her character and McConaughey’s go back and forth saving each other repeatedly.
Steve Zahn (National Security, Crimson Tide) plays McConaughey’s sidekick and is pretty good at filling his role of bringing in humor where necessary.
And just in case one side kick isn’t enough, adding a little more humor is Rainn Wilson (Almost Famous, Galaxy Quest) who is a nerdier sidekick, while Zahn is action-minded.
William H. Macy (Jurassic Park III, Fargo) plays Admiral Sandecker, in charge of the NUMA project. This is somewhat of a refreshing change for Macy, as many of his previous characters had less confidence in themselves compared to the Sandecker character.
Lennie James plays Kazim. Not too much to say about this performance as it is basically a standard evil-dictator-who-doesn’t-care-about-the rest-of-the-world-type of character. The character does, however, bring up an interesting insight when he says, “This is Africa. Nobody cares about Africa.” In a day when Western news tends to be single-minded in its quest to bring us the latest on Iraq, Terri Shiavo, Michael Jackson, and the Pope, anything that happens in Africa seems overlooked.
Lambert Wilson plays a French Industrialist who is in league with Kazim while feigning friendship with Sandecker. Basically your typical baddie who’s not quite evil, as he does have a conscience.
All in all, while this film may not be up to the level of National Treasure or the Indiana Jones trilogy, it’s still worth a gander on the big screen.
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