Sahara
Only once in a great while does a movie come along that is so awesomely bad that I feel the need to write about it. So bad, one almost had to wonder if Matthew McConaughy and Penelope Cruz were cruising around in that RV smoking a little reefer when they read the script and thought it was a good movie to do. So bad that were it not for the saving grace that was Steve Zahn I would have had to pull a Homer Simpson and write the producers of the movie to demand a refund.

The movie starts off with a simple and moderately interesting premise - American treasure hunters seek long lost Civil War battle ship that mysteriously seems to have found it's way to Africa, but in the midst get tangled up with the WHO and discover deadly toxins in the Niger River. Now here is where logically the plot would lead them to unearth the ship as the cause of the toxins, but oh no. No the writers of this film had to take it down a path of global destruction so preposterous that it led me to question "Is this a Jerry Bruckheimer film?"

The cast is comprised of your usual stereotypes:
The hunky lead, Dirk (Matthew McConaughy)
The exotic girl-who-could-feasibly-kick-ass-but-inevitably-winds-up-the-damsel-in-distress (Penelope Cruz)
The funny sidekick, Al (Steve Zahn)
The stern-yet-sympathetic boss, The Admiral (William H. Macy)
The nerd who gets his shit-your-pants-desert-adventure cherry popped (some dude)
The kindly black doctor (from the get go you know either he or the nerd above is getting offed)
The smarmy evil Frenchman
The homicidal warlord
The endearing rebel leader

So in a nutshell, Dirk and Al phenagle the Admiral into letting them use his yacht to go to Mali in search of this long lost ship. However, they are tricked into taking along Ava (Cruz) and the doctor (can't recall his name, he died too quick) as a "favor" to the Admiral. The evil Mali warlord doesn't want the doctors on his turf, so they go after all of the above mentioned and the doctor dies. But of course Ava's colleague could not just die in a bloody gunbattle in the desert. No, after being saved by Dirk and Al, who despite having limited weapons and being outnumbered about 20 to 2 triumph over the bad guys, Ava must run back into the the camp to throw herself at the doctor's dead body and scream "Noooooooo!" Classic.

Now the nerdy guy is with them in the beginning, but as soon as they hit land he is sent back to deliver the bad news to the Admiral - his yacht has exploded. Somehow, largely thanks our willing suspension of disbelief, we're led to believe that having no survival skills nor really anything on his person this nerdy man makes it through an African war zone back to the Admiral in one piece.

Dirk, Ava and Al deduce that the remains of their Civil War ship are leaking toxins into the Niger River, poisoning water supplies and endangering all. As they're putting that together, our lovable nerd, who took a sample from the Niger himself, also discovered that there is poison in the water.

Now here is where one might just send the trio to find the damn ship, stop the toxins and save the day. But wait! The toxins are spreading at such an alarming rate, as demonstrated by a nifty computer model the nerd put together for an apathetic government official, they will hit the Atlantic Ocean within a week and spread all the way to New York City within 6 months, devouring entire ecosystems. This is where I honestly thought William H. Macy was going to say "All the worst parts of the Bible..."

And that just wouldn't be enough. Turns out the smarmy Frenchman is in cahoots with the evil warlord and is leaking the toxins into the water supply through a solar powered toxic waste dump. Don't you love that subtext?

So now instead of the slighty unbelievable but nevertheless entertaining plot of two guys, a girl and a ship, we have an epic battle to save the world. Sorta.

Long story short, when the smarmy Frenchman is discovered he decides to blow up the toxic dump but Dirk and Al figure it out. Al nobly tells Dirk to get the girl while he disables the bomb; while Al saves the day, Dirk must duke it out with the smarmy Frenchman's henchman. Here is a great scene where Ava knocks out the smarmy Frenchman and the helicopter pilot, causing a tailspin which clocks Dirk upside the head - yet despite the force of the impact he remains conscious and is able to dangle from the side of the building. Also miraculous he managed to avoid the rotor blades of the helicopter despite smacking into its tail.

Explosion averted, girl gotten, but wait, there's still the matter of the ship, which they happen upon while trying to blow up the helicopter of the evil warlord. Seeking shelter in the ship's hull, the greatest moment of acting in this movie comes when Dirk actually seems shocked that a 21st century aircraft operated by a homicidal warlord is *gasp* equipped with armor piercing artillery capable of shooting through the hull of a 19th century war ship.

And just when you think all is lost, they blow up the bad guy with the cannon on the ship. That's right, the cannon on the ship. Somehow a cannonball that has been buried in the desert for 150years still had enough in it to blow up a helicopter. Who knew. At that point the endearing rebel leader and his people triumph over the bad guys. The movie at last comes to a close with the obligatory scene of Penelope Cruz running around a beach in a bikini.

So if I walked away with anything from this movie it was that any African civil war, smarmy Frenchman or Civil War mystery can be conquered by two renegade Americans and an exotic female lead.

And in conclusion, the top 5 reasons why Steve Zahn saved this movie
1) He showed ass crack
2) He lost not one, but two hats - and still triumphed
3) He was packing some major heat
4) When asked what he would do if trying to cover up a massive toxic waste dump he said "Run for President"
5) He actually used the phrase "decision making paradigms"