Was that film really that bad??? Sahara (2005)

After the really, really bad experience from the filming of Raise the Titanic, it took over twenty five years before another attempt was made to adapt a Clive Cussler novel for the silver screen. Sahara, published in 1992, was the book chosen and it was given a fairly hefty budget of $160 million ($211m in 2020). It ended up being one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time. I loved it when I first saw it and despite its reputation of being a stinker, wanted to give it a re-watch to see if my opinion then still holds today.

The poster does not lack for confidence.

As a big-budget action adventure comedy movie, there is a suitably starry cast, with Matthew McConaughey playing Dirk Pitt, Steve Zahn as Al Giordino (already, this film is much closer to Cussler’s novel than Raise the Titanic ever was), Penelope Cruz as World Health Organisation Dr Eva Rojas, William H. Macy as Admiral James Sandecker and Rainn Wilson as Rudy Gunn. The bad guys are played by Lambert Wilson, as corrupt businessman Yves Massarde, and Lennie James as General Zateb Kazim. We also get the ever great Delroy Lindo as US government agent, Carl.

This is not a comment on actors and film production...

The plot is pretty straight forward. NUMA are in Mali recovering sunken treasures for museum display whilst Rojas is there investigating a new disease that is threatening the population. When Pitt saves Rojas from an attack whilst at the same time learning of tales of a missing Confederate ironclad, he and Giordino agree to transport Rojas and her colleague so that they can investigate the source of the disease and the two adventurers can look for the legendary ship. Along the way, they discover that Massarde is using a solar tower to burn toxic waste which is causing the disease and is in cahoots with General Kazim, who is running his own little civil war against the Taureg. Along the way, Pitt and Giordino discover the Confederate ironclad which they use in a rather silly way to kill Kazim, thus ending the civil war. Massarde gets his comeuppance and Pitt, Giordino and NUMA carry on with hints that there are more adventures to come. Except there won’t be, but I’ll get to that.

At heart, Sahara is a big dumb action movie that wants you to like it. Starting off with a breezy credits scene set to “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Dr John that details the pair’s previous adventures, you know straight away that it’s going to be ever so slightly goofy, and indeed, that is what it is. Despite the peril set up by the world threatening pollution caused by Massarde’s industrial plant, you never get the feeling our heroes are really in any danger – and yes, that includes the land yacht scene. Even typing that brings a smile to my face as I really do love this film. So why did it bomb and why so hard?

Making the best of a plane crash - again, no comment on movie production...

$160m was a lot of money back then (it’s not exactly small change now!) and it would have taken a breakout box office performance to justify a sequel. Truth is, they spent a lot of money making this film when they could, and perhaps should, have spent an awful lot less. There was money spent on scenes that were not included in the finished run time, as well as money wasted on numerous scriptwriters (each one adding about half a mil to the production budget) as Cussler, who had been promised final say on script, actors etc, becoming more aggravated at the direction of the film. In the end, he disowned it for not getting his own way - but in my humble opinion, he'd been paid well, had the promise of future films getting him $10m per movie and should have just left it at that. But hey ho... 

After gaining the whiff of failure from its first weekend's box office, Sahara couldn’t cover its budget or its distribution costs, leading to a loss of about $73m (although some sources go up to $105m). That’s when the lawsuits started, with Cussler and the production company spending the next seven (yes, seven!) years accusing each other of bad faith and each side claiming damages. Needless to say, neither side came out smelling of roses. 

So, the re-watch. Yes, I still love this film. It’s a goofy, silly, funny two hours of action. However, I did notice the flaws a bit more this time. Let’s start with the casting.

McConaughey is great as Pitt, confident and self-assured, quick with a quip and handy with the physicality the role requires. Unlike the previous occupant in the role, McConaughey’s enthusiasm for the role shines on the screen. Zahn is good as Giordino, that can’t be denied, and he nails the comedy sidekick vibe throughout the film whilst also appearing serious when he needs to be. He’s further away from his literary counterpart than Pitt is, but that makes no difference on-screen. The pair gel well and are a hoot together.

Macy as Sandecker is further away from the original book character but the film moves him from a desk job and into actual command of NUMA’s sole ship, so the change in character does work as far as the film goes. Wilson is also good as Gunn, though to be honest, he’s not given that much to do. Cruz gives it her best, but has little chemistry with McConaughey and is basically there to be rescued, whereas Lindo’s screen time is limited but what he does get, he serves it up with a twinkle in his eye.

It is the antagonists that are the most poorly drawn. If you’re going to have an action comedy then you need the foils to your heroes to be lively and able to spark off against them. Instead, two great actors are left in the lurch, Lambert being suitably slimy and sleazy as Massarde but also extremely two dimensional, whereas James is frankly wasted as Kazim, being more pantomime than military psychopath. For this, I am placing the blame on Breck Eisner, the director. This was only his second film gig (outside of his thesis) and his follow up film work has been suitably lacklustre. This film has its moments, to be sure, but there is a lack of spirit and style. I never really noticed it before - McConaughey's sheer presence does hide most of it - but when Pitt is not on screen, there is an almost visible sag in the film. This continues with the action scenes, lacking as they are a certain pzazz and that is the fault of the director. To the film’s credit, there is a lack of CGI that is a refreshing change, but also bumped up the cost.

See, some people were happy with the movie...

Overall, I still think Sahara is a great film and you’d do far worse than to give it two hours of your time. It’s not ground breaking, or part of a cinematic franchise that the producers so wanted to create (there was even a third person action video game that I remember being featured in Edge magazine 137 but alas, the failure of the film put paid to it ever being finished), but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that it’s entertaining and just plain fun. Where it fell down was in spending far too much money for this kind of movie, and it lacks a lot of spectacle that $160m should buy. Then again, even if the film had cost a more reasonable (for the period) $100m, it would still have turned a loss, though nowhere near as big as it actually did. As it stands, it’s both an example of profligate spending scuppering box office success and a fantastic popcorn movie.

Was that film really that bad??? Raise the Titanic

Have you ever watched a film and thought, "That's not too bad." "It was alright." "Pretty middle of the road." "Kind of flawed but worth a couple of hours," but then learned more about that film and realised that pretty much everyone else considers it trash? Yep, me too, and such was my thinking when, one boring lockdown afternoon, I happened across a full copy of "Raise the Titanic" on YouTube and decided to give it a watch.

Even the title looks bored.

You see, when I was but a wee lad in the 1980's, this was a semi-regular Saturday afternoon kind of film (and if that doesn't raise an alarm, nothing will) and I remember liking it quite a bit. After all, I'd read the novel and was a fan of the author (you can read my thoughts on a modern day re-reading of his first few novels here). Given the rose tint of memory, I wasn't sure really what to expect as the film started and by the end of it, well, yes...

Released in 1980, Raise the Titanic was a Lew Grade production of the Clive Cussler novel of the same name. The book was published in 1976 and filming began in late 1979. Famously, the producers spent $15 million before a single frame had been shot, getting together the models and water tanks required for the special effects. That was $15 million then. That's over $53 million today. In the end, the budget that was originally set at $9 million ($31m 2020) ended up being $40 million ($142m 2020). Given the money spent on it, it had to be something special. It's box office return of $7 million ($22m 2020) was not.

The plot is pretty straight forward: America has a defence program that would protect the country from airborne and spaceborne threats. It needs a specific mineral to power it. The only known source of this was on a Soviet held island, but when they look for it, it's already been mined. They discover that the mined material was loaded on to the Titanic and thus decide to raise the ship to get to the mineral. Naturally, the Soviets clock onto this and therein should lie the basis of a decent thriller. Notice I said "should".

Because this film isn't a decent thriller. Where to begin?

OK, let's start off with the whole point of the book: it's a Dirk Pitt adventure. Except here, Pitt is a bit of a whiny arse. Not really Richard Jordan's fault: the script does give him some clunkers - especially the "distress" rant, where he comes across as someone who doesn't know what's going on, when in fact the film has him reveal a secret insurance policy a few minutes later. Really, this film isn't about Pitt at all - it's about the ship. Which means most of the cast are wasted.

With Jordan being miscast as Pitt (no twinkle in his eyes, playing it completely flat), the rest of the cast are similarly poorly chosen. Jason Robards as Admiral Jim Sandecker looks bored and totally disinterested in acting. When asked why he was in the movie, he later replied "for the money." It shows. David Selby as Gene Seagram is ok, possibly the best casting of the lot, but an entire sub-plot from the book is discarded and again, he struggles to come across as two dimensional, so bad is the script. And bless poor Anne Archer, one of only two women in the film with speaking parts - the other is a pub landlady in Cornwall! Archer gives perhaps the only warm performance of the lot as Dana Archibald, a reporter who is Seagram's girlfriend and an ex of Pitt's. Again, not given much to do and with bugger all involvement in developing the plot, even though there is room for tension and drama (as there was in the novel), it's almost like Archer is window dressing and this is a criminal mis-use of her acting abilities.

Everyone else has pretty much bit parts, though one character was originally going to be Al Giordino, Pitt's long time friend, but in the end, Giordino is nowhere to be seen. Comment must be made about Alec Guiness, who pops up as the last surviving crew member of the Titanic - it looks like he was given £50 in an envelope and told to ham it up for a day or two. I apologise, it was probably way more than £50!

So, with a simple plot and barebones characters, you'd maybe expect a taut, Cold War thriller. Well, it's set in the Cold War, there is that. The pacing of the story is glacial, with a brisk-ish start that soon slows to the almost documentary-level torpidity of how to raise a long sunken ship from a very deep part of the ocean. Of course, this is dangerous and there are deaths but you might not notice all of this as you'll have been too busy watching some impressive, albeit murky, model submarine work. This pretty much takes up the middle third of the film. When they do get the ship to the surface (with some rather decent model work, it must be admitted), it then plods on for a bit before introducing the dual threats of bad weather and the Soviets, who have lured away the Titanic's protective Navy presence. The Soviets are dealt with by Pitt's surprise insurance policy of a sub and two fighter jets, whilst the bad weather never gets mentioned again. Needless to say, Cussler made this much more exciting in his book. Then we get to the end of the film and the twist. Except it's not really a twist and it's delivered with such a whimper that when one of the characters asks, "Don't you want us to dig it up?", you can't help but question whether they mean the mineral or the script.

On the plus side, there is that rather good model work, though modern day viewers used to CGI will call it out as crap, but that seems to be a generational thing. There is a lovely little easter egg on the model of the Titanic by its builders as well (yes, this is how desperate I am to find good things to say here...).

I've circled the pump operator here - he did well from 12,600 feet!

They did get official US Navy support so when you see ships floating about or mini-subs hanging from cranes, they are the real thing. There is also some decent real world location filming in the US, but there I am stretching the point that they got to walk two actors past a security cabin at an entrance to the White House. Other times, it looks cheap, especially when they dock the Titanic in New York and there is a crowd of about fifty people stood behind a railing and everyone else behind them isn't even taking any notice of the ship at all.

There is one thing, however, that we should be grateful for with this film, and that's the soundtrack. John Barry delivers one of his finest pieces of work. Some may only be familiar with his work on the Bond films but if you look here, he was extremely prolific. For Raise the Titanic though, he nails it, even if the film itself is poor. The score soars when it needs to, matches the seriousness of the underwater scenes and captures the joy of success - something the rest of this film lacks. Not only a damn fine composer, perhaps he'd read the book as well...

Is Raise the Titanic a good film? No, certainly not. It's biggest flaw is the lack of relatable characters - the focus on the ship means there is no human drama here worth a damn and all the actors have to do is turn up. The lack of passion is palpable and you often feel that even the actors are giving sly nods to the camera to show that they're also aware of it. This is a shame, as given the character of Pitt, there is an adventure series waiting to happen. And believe me, years after this box office bomb, they tried. But that's for another day, and another entry into what I hope becomes a semi-regular series. As for Raise the Titanic, it's a perfect Sunday afternoon film. After stuffing yourself with Sunday lunch, retire to the settee and doze off listening to Barry's superb score. It's not like you'll be missing much of the film.

Recent Reads - November 2019

Becoming Superman is the autobiography of J. Michael Straczynski, probably best known for creating the sci-fi show Babylon 5 in the 1990’s, but whose career is much more varied. From animated series (He-Man, She-Ra, The Real Ghostbusters), live action TV (Captain Power, Murder She Wrote, Jeremiah and Sense8), films (Thor, Changeling) and comics (Spiderman, Superman), there isn’t much that he hasn’t done – and that’s not including the “Guide to Scriptwriting” which is a go to book of its kind ever since it was published in 1982.

Buy this book. Seriously, but it now!

When this book was announced earlier in the year, I mentioned it to my good lady and she kindly offered to buy me it for my birthday. Having read it over a couple of days, I can honestly say this book made me laugh, cry, cheer and despair – and that’s just the cats!

Straczynski’s life is related with humour and a degree of honesty rarely found in most biographies. Indeed, there is little varnish here at all. Beginning with how his family made its way to the United States, and then detailing the lives of his parents, it certainly feels as if nothing has been left out. Once the set up has been completed, Mr Straczynski takes centre stage for the rest of the book.

It is not an easy read and more than once, I asked myself how exactly Straczynski ever ended up being a functioning adult. Despite the knock backs and travails, he succeeded not only at that but also brilliantly in his aim of being a writer. Along the way, you’ll find out how screwed up families can be, the pitfalls of trying to make a career out of writing and the sheer unfairness of the entertainment industry. You also, however, meet some of the colleagues and friends that have helped and nourished Mr Straczynski, and how deep the human spirit can be when you find yourself in a precarious situation. Individuals (and characters) include the late Harlan Ellison, Michael O’Hare, Jeff Conaway and Andreas Katsulas.

What Straczynski does do very well is reinforce the point that if you believe in something enough and you keep trying, there is much you can achieve. This book is evidence of that and throughout the harrowing struggles of Straczynski’s life, he never gave up. Whether it be personal issues, fighting his corner at work or hangovers from his family, his self-belief and self-awareness have carried him forward. This is a very worthy read and highly recommended.

Fiction next and “Show me a Hero” by Patrick Alexander is something a lot more cynical. Set in the then future 1980’s, (being published in the late 1970’s), it posits a Britain ruled by a far left dictatorship where personal freedoms have been crushed and a weakened resistance group are trying to bring own the government. The main character, Tom Ashman, is a high level operator with the resistance, planning a gold bullion raid to fund its ongoing operations. The primary antagonist is Colonel Julian Cunningham, chief of the Secret Police.

Alexander’s writing is terse and no-nonsense. There is little frippery and, whilst most of the characterisations suffer because of this, the two foes are defined well enough to hook you into the story. With some very on-the-mark jibes about British politics (few of which have dated at all - make of that what you will), “Show me a Hero” is an engaging tale well told. Tonally, it feels very much like those typical ‘70’s TV shows The Sweeney and The Professionals. Dated, but on the mark. There are a couple of issues though: due to the lack of smaller character development, motivations for some actions are muddled, and there is a fascination with military kit and weaponry that borders on a fetish – though not to the point of the terrible Jerry Ahern written series of post-apocalyptic novels under the Survivalist banner. It is the ending, though, that gives “Show me a Hero” its biggest punch and elevates this book above similar pulpy tomes. Truly, it ends with a wonderfully British cynicism that remains timeless.

Speaking of pulpy books, this brings me neatly to the first seven Clive Cussler-penned Dirk Pitt novels. Seven??? Well, a recent holiday to the US meant a fair bit of flying and loitering around airports so I dusted off my aged Kindle and downloaded these titles to see if, what I recall were decent stories when first read in the late 1980’s, were worthy of that recollection. As L.P. Hartley (was he J.R.’s brother???) wrote, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” and boy, is that apt here.

First off, the positive points. The seven novels: Pacific Vortex, Mayday!, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic!, Vixen 03, Night Probe!, Deep Six, demonstrate Cussler’s improved writing (note – Pacific Vortex was the sixth novel published but the first continuity-wise. It was a first attempt at a novel by Cussler and published purely as a “curio”). As each book was released, it shows Cussler becoming more adept with intricate plots and action set pieces. The familiar template of historical prologue followed by “present day” action is well established by Deep Six, as is the expansion of the Pitt universe. Characters change (smoking being the prime example here – veritable chimneys at the start, with only a couple of cigar smokers by book five) and a definitive timeline is in set up, placing the action of these novels in the then-future late 1980’s. As fantastical action thrillers, these are easy reads and decent enough time fillers.

The negatives? Sigh…

The simple stuff first: Cussler’s characterisations. Essentially, villains are two dimensional and are there to be beaten. There is never any doubt that the good guys will win. Also, Cussler’s depiction of women is, at least in these novels, dire and tone deaf. Even by the time we get to Deep Six, published in 1984, he still can’t write from a woman’s point of view without coming across as more than a little sexist. Some might say old-school gentlemanly, but a lot of female characters are there to be ogled, perused and rescued. Even supposedly strong women are no match for Pitt’s sexual magnetism. As for the other male characters, well, when one (in Iceberg) remarks of a woman “She’s too young for menopause, she must be on her period”, you know he was writing to an audience. Mayday!, however, is the one that takes the prize for the most awkward handling of a woman: Pitt’s actions, if undertaken today, would land him in court. After finding a beautiful woman still grieving her husband’s death eight years prior, he gives her a hard slap about the face and then they promptly have at it on a beach!

Then there is the representation of gay characters. Reading Iceberg again left a nasty taste in my mouth as Pitt masquerades as a gay man to fool the villain of the piece. The portrayal is offensive, all over the top camp and clothing. The language used to describer Pitt’s behaviour (“a goddammed homo act” and “he thinks I am a faggot”) are just plain nasty – though I suppose period accurate if we’re going to go there. The introduction of St. Julien Perlmutter in Deep Six starts to even out the balance but even then, upon receiving a welcoming hug, Pitt’s response is asking if Perlmutter wants a kick in the crotch. I know, as I noted before, the past is a different place but attitudes really have changed since then.

The presentation of technology in the earlier tales is very 1970’s, with computer banks and seemingly omnipotent computer decision making – very Dr Who! Cussler is, though, on more certain footing when it comes to cars and diving. 

I would like to say I’ll continue the Pitt series until the end of the solely Clive Cussler penned stories, and maybe the first he co-wrote with his son, Dirk – the humorously titled “Black Wind” - purile of me, I know! For me, I find when a co-author is added, books tend to lose that certain spark that made them decent. Then again, by that point in his career, Cussler had become so formulaic. It might not make much of a difference.

You may think I have judged these a tad harshly considering when they were published, but then again, it is useful to see where the author began and where they ended up. As you can still buy newly published (co-authored) Pitt novels today, I think it is worthwhile re-reading these and calling out where they have dated extremely poorly. Not high literature by any means, they are still worth a go if you like light-hearted thrillers. Just bear in mind that political and social attitudes have changed significantly since their first publication.