Sahara

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Sahara's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Sahara completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 19 April 05.

Overall comments and recommendations

Sahara is an action adventure film in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark and targets adolescent viewers. It will also entertain adults who are looking for simple, mindless entertainment as the storyline has no credibility. There are some funny scenes, tongue in cheek humour, entertaining stunts and reasonable acting.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Sahara contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

World Health Organisation doctor Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) is investigating a possible outbreak of plague in Mali Africa with her co-worker Dr. Hopper (Glynn Turman). They team up with two treasure hunters, Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) who are looking for an 1860s Confederate battleship, which they believe to have sunk in the Niger River .

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Violence enacted with knifes, fists and guns was sporadic throughout the entire film. The heroes were presented as attractive and righteous, their violent acts were glamorised always successful and at times presented in a comic book manner. The violence enacted by the film's villains was presented as evil, callous and murderous.

Some examples of violence include:

• Dr. Hopper is shot in the head by Kazim. Eva appears distressed and upset by the loss.
• a man is shot through the hand with a spear gun bolt
• Eva is strangled, and an attempt made to cut her throat
• lots of loud explosions such as boat, truck, cars and helicopters being blown up
• a man falls to his death from the top of a high tower
• people are shot, including one man being shot several times in the head executioner style
• men have their neck and arms broken including the sound effects of the bone breaking.
• the movie's heroes stab, shoot, blow up and break the necks of dozens of the bad guys
• the movie's villains perform the same sort of violence but without causing any ill effect to the heroes—this lack of injury was sometimes a deliberate attempt at tongue in check humour.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are many other visual images that are capable of scaring younger children, including images of plague-infected bodies covered in bloody exposed sores.

Aged eight to fifteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Of most concern to children between the ages of eight and fifteen years are scenes where violence is depicted in a more realistic manner, including: the attacks made against Eva; the executioner style shooting to the head; the sound effects of men having their necks and arms broken; and the scenes portraying the plague-infected bodies.

Sexual references

There are no sexual references in this movie.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is very little nudity or sexual activity, just a shot of Eva wearing a bikini bathing suit while lying on the beach, and later an image of her hugging and kissing Dirk in the water.

Use of substances

The film contains three of four scenes where small amounts of alcohol are consumed at meal times, lunch and dinner. There are no intoxicating effects resulting from the alcohol consumption.

Coarse language

The film contains very little coarse language, just occasional use of ‘damn' and ‘ass'.

The movie's message

There is an obvious message about the dangers of toxic waste to societies and the environment, and the film portrays the American government as inept in responding to a potential environmental disaster. Otherwise the film contains no real take home message.