Sahara is one of those movies that really holds nothing special in any way. The inspiration from Indiana Jones is quite obvious, both in setting and the awkward predicaments our heroes get in, but where Steven Spielberg’s titular hero was adulterated fun, Breck Eisner’s (yes, that Eisner) characters fall flat and succumb to genre clichés left and right as the movie’s misleading marketing campaign goes into high gear.

Let me start there. From the very first previews I saw of the film it make it look like a companion of National Treasure in which a group of historians get together to solve a major puzzle. With the rise of The da Vinci code to pop-culture status, who knows how many clones we’ll see in the next five years? Hell, we’re finally making our way to the B-list of comic book stars. Yet, Sahara isn’t anything like National Treasure; sure the movie starts off with a quest to find the last iron-clad ship launched during the Civil War, but it ends up becoming a mixture of Temple of Doom and an Environmental Protection Agency video.

We start off with two separate storylines. There is apparently a plague ravaging an African country torn by civil war, but the world’s health organizations don’t want to put themselves in the line of fire to help these sick people, so one doctor, Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), takes it upon herself to lead a crusade and save these people. She enlists the help of former-Navy SEALs turned treasure hunters by the names of Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) to help her out. It just so happens that the ship their searching for may be somehow linked to the sickness. As mentioned before, these are merely two-dimensional characters who don’t have any real personality, and besides the banter between Dirk and Al during some pivotal moments, you don’t really get any character development at all.

If you can actually believe it, the two main villains in this film are a corrupted African dictator (how original) and a business man looking to make a lot of money (ditto).

Granted, the film is based on a novel, but most novels are lush with character development and feature enriching dialog as the author paints a picture in your mind, the only thing painted in Sahara is McConaughey’s tan. Still, as much as you try to justify and analyze everything happening on the screen, you’ll be fairly entertained through some of the film, especially when Dirk and Al need to use some ingenuity to get out of a sticky situation. The comedic Zahn basically plays a slightly more serious character variation than he usually does, and isn’t the token wimp of the film this time through. Cruz manages to look good through the course of the film, but doesn’t do much else, and McConaughey’s “cool-boy” acting has gotten him this far, so why change it?

Sahara really is a book of failed promises and lowed expectations, even when you don’t expect that much going in. National Treasure surprised me with how good it actually was, even if the writing needed a few more once-overs by someone with talent, but you still got an entertaining film. This sun-soaked film tried too hard to impersonate others in the genre while never really capturing the audiences imagination and full focus. When there’s something funny on the screen, we laugh, but then go right back to the state we were in. Its like a film of mediocrity with sudden jumps into above-average territory.

By all means, if you are a devoted fan of the genre, rent Sahara when it comes out on DVD, just to get your fix until we finally get a fourth installment of Indiana Jones. If you’ve bought into the hype put out by Paramount about lost treasure and all those who seek it biting the big one you might as well throw those ideals away like a piece of garbage, but be careful, you never know when the EPA will strike.

The Rock’s breakout performance was in the prequel to The Mummy, entitled The Scorpion King, where he reprised his role of the title character originally established in The Mummy Returns. Next up was last year’s The Rundown, and while the story was nothing to get excited about, it was the professional wrestler’s onscreen charisma with Seann William Scott that gave the film such an edge. Now the Rock is starring in MGM’s update to Walking Tall, a story of a man who returns home from the service to find his small, quaint town tainted with corruption, and just like the films before it, The Rock manages to save a film from mediocrity by simply appearing on screen.

The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) is Chris Vaughn, an Army vet who returns home after leaving the service to get reacquainted with his old life, visit old friends, and resume the life he had before leaving. It seems as though things have changed, and the town he remembers has also changed quite a bit. The economy supporting mill has been replaced by a seedy casino, and small mom and pop shops have been forced out by adult bookstores and major chains. Even without the story itself, you can see the film as a notice that small time shops and businesses are being forced out by the powering hands of Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Chris, after viewing most of these changes first hand, settles in with his parents, and meets up with his old friend Ray (Johnny Knoxville), who just spent a few years in lockdown, and Jay (Neal McDonough), who closed the mill and opened the town’s casino. Chris soon learns of some of the sordid dealings going down at the casino, and after calling foul, and beating a few guards down, he is finally subdued and “punished.” After his nephew overdoses on crystal meth, which he received from the guys at the casino, Chris goes to town with a big piece of wood and a lot of anger. Eventually, Chris will be elected as the new sheriff, much to the distress of Jay, and now his life, and that of his families is in danger.

The film itself has one glaring problem; it’s only 75 minutes long, which makes it feel much shorter than it actually is. The flow of the film never is broken up with either action or story keeping the narrative from drifting too far off course, but the film really lacks a second act. We go right from Chris coming back to town, almost immediately to him becoming sheriff, having one “battle,” and then the film ends, seemingly with the standard happy, Hollywood ending, even though it is based on true story.

As I stated before the film is carried mostly by The Rock, and in part by Johnny Knoxville’s comedic timing. As he did with Seann William Scott previously, The Rock shows the ability to be teamed up with just about anyone, and bring the film alive with the interaction between the characters. The characters themselves get about as much developing as they could in such a short film, and occasionally standard Hollywood clichés pop-up to keep you grounded, and from getting too much into the film.

Even if it only came up short by 15 minutes from being traditionally considered “feature film length,” Walking Tall seems almost like half the film is missing, but maybe director Kevin Bray kept us from having to sift through 15 minutes of filler material before we get to the ass-kicking. Sure the film has its problems, and even though it is based on a true story, you still get the Hollywood glazed-over feel from it, like maybe too much liberty was taken in adapting the film to the screen, again, but with get performances from The Rock and Johnny Knoxville you will still leave happy, and, hopefully, walking tall.

You know a movie has it’s problems when the best, and most believable, character is only on screen for a mere 20 seconds at the very end. Not to say that any of the characters in Phone Booth are believable adaptations of a real life person, but the Caller (Kiefer Sutherland) is by far the best representation in the entire movie, and many patrons might miss that. Also a notable performance comes from Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Capt. Ramey.

Phone Booth, itself, is teetering on the side of a short, mediocre film, and a tense, stressful flick that has you anticipating what happens next. I would love to tell you what happens next, but what happened in my brain during the movie, wasn’t the same that was projected on the screen in front of me. The balancing act comes from a movie that gives you everything, and nothing at the same time. You are shown the inner workings of a troubled P.R. associate, but did you really want to know him in the first place?

Phone Booth suffers from not having any characters you want to connect with, even if you were given the chance. Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is suppose to be the “good” guy in this movie, but you just assume let the Caller pick him off after hearing him talk for ten seconds. He is the personification of everything you hate in a person. A lying, cheating, cell phone talking, obnoxious fool whom you just assume hit with your Volvo, than have to watch on film for 81 minutes.

As you might have guessed, Phone Booth places Stu in one of the remaining free standing phone booths in New York City and traps him inside when a sniper sets his sights on Stu because of his boisterous activities of invisible infidelity and lack of honesty to his wife (Rahda Mitchell), and his would-be-mistress (Katie Holmes). After picking up the phone, he is unable to hang up, or he will be shot. The highlight of the movie comes when a group of self-proclaimed “escorts” try to pry Stu out of the phone booth so they can “return a call.” This added bit of comedy is a refreshing blast in the beginning of the movie that trails off into mellow-drama towards the end.

The part if found most annoying was the cinematography which appears to have been done by a raccoon with a camera. Director Joel Schumacher (Bad Company) may seem as though he has lifted the split screen technique from FOX TV show “24,” but careful analysis proves that the flick was filmed almost a year before that show debuted, yet, moviegoers who see it now will scream “rip-off” as I did before checking the filming dates. When the the screen isn’t being split into fragments, or being superimposed with other images, you are treated to some of the most jerky camera movements known to man, almost as bad as the miniDV work in Narc that left me reaching for a bucket to wharf in.

Still even with its problems, Phone Booth does come out as an enjoyable, albeit short, film that does have it’s share of tense moments. As previously stated, Kiefer Sutherlands deadpan, dry voice is the highlight of the movie, even though you don’t get to see him for a majority of the film. While Phone Booth may bring Joel Schumacher’s credibility back up a notch, the rest of the cast stands to gain, nor lose, anything by participating in this film.

The general notion in Hollywood is if you make someone look different than you, it is okay to kill them, or if you make them do bad things, you have all the right to slaughter them uncontrollably. Tears of the Sun plays by both of these rules as the movie starts off on what could be the quickest ending war film in the history of the world, and then takes a trip off the deep end after some “feeling” was interjected into the plot.

The craziest thing about this movie is the enemy. All the director had to do was get a bunch of guys together, slap some berets he undoubtfully bought in bulk at  Monica Lewinsky’s garage sale and gave them guns. Viola, instant, hardcore killing machines chasing our beloved group of refugees and US military personnel through the rain forests of Nigeria.

The movie goes like this. Lt. A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) leads a group of the elite who are running incursion missions into a mythical ethnic war happening in Nigeria. Since it seems the crazy guys in power don’t like anyone who isn’t of the same faith and/or color as them, an army is sent out around the country to do some ethnic cleansing which leads Waters in to his mission. He is sent in by his Captain (Tom Skerritt) into enemy territory to rescue Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Belluci) who spends her free time helping injured people and galloping around in tight fitting tank tops. Through a series of events that will make the viewer cringe in disbelief at just how gullible the United States armed forces can be, Waters agrees to escort a number of refugees to the border with Cameroon even while a large detachment of “evil” beret forces are tailing them.

You really want to go into those movie with high expectations after seeing previous attempts like Behind Enemy Lines and the excellent Black Hawk Down, but you never are able to bring yourself to truly enjoy the movie because it is all based on a stupid decision. If this were the real military, Waters would be discharged so fast the stubble on his face would burn off, but this isn’t the real military, and the entire film sets up for the money shot at the end with a huge explosion you have seen in the trailers.

The biggest hurdle for me was to actually have a sense of conflict. This is the same feeling I had in Black Hawk Down because the enemy is just a faceless group of people who do bad things. The overall conflict is there, and the internal conflict Waters has with himself about his decision just isn’t enough to give the movie any excitement. Truth be told, this is one of the least action packed war movies you will ever see. You may be surprised how many times you check your watch.

It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy the movie, which I did, it just has some glaring problems that bring it to its knees when compared to other movies of the same genre with a much better script and much more developed characters. Of Waters entire team I can remember one persons name, and the rest were just canon fodder.

You find that Hollywood’s attempt to add feeling into a gritty, overly-violent war movie just doesn’t seem to work because of the conflicting emotions. Waters is trying to do a good thing and save people, and members of his team are slitting the throats of Nigerian Rebels. If this is Hollywood’s ideal of feeling the emotional torment our soldiers in uniform have to go through behind enemy lines, then I feel as though I’m going to be sick. See Tears of the Sun to get a glimpse at classic Willis a la Die Hard, but then rent Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down or John Moore’s Behind Enemy Lines and see a war movie done right.

Narc is just one of those movies that stands out for a number of reasons. The first being the acting, and the second being the sense of style the director chose to give his creation.

The film focuses on the murder of an undercover cop infiltrating a ring of drugs and drug dealers, this is the overall plot device, but there are several little side-stories going on at the same time that sometimes keep you guessing as to whose side everyone is on, and what their motives are. Detective Sgt. Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) has been off the force for 18 months when he is called in to assist in the investigation into the aforementioned cop’s murder. The movie opens 18 months prior to present day with Tellis chasing down a suspect into a playground and opening fire, killing the assailant, but also hitting a pregnant women and causing her to lose her child. No Tellis has a family of his own and wants nothing to do with the Police investigation, but he is talked into doing so by his longtime friend and captain (Chi McBride).

To proceed through the investigation, Tellis is teamed up with the murdered cops close friend Henry Oak (Ray Liotta), who had been thrown off the case for being too close to the victim. Together they being to piece together the puzzle of Calvess’ (Alan Van Sprang) murder and the events that lead up to it.

As I mentioned before, Narc stands above the crowd because of acting and style. The acting is nothing of a surprise with Ray Liotta and Jason Patric headlining. Liotta comes off perfectly as a brutal cop bent on discovering the circumstances behind his friend’s murder. As the movie progresses, you will learn more about why he is so close to the family. Patric plays the troubled, family man Nick Tellis wonderfully. Through the course of the movie he begins to put the pieces together and gets so caught up in the investigation that he puts his home life at risk. The movie is able to stand on these two actors, but a wide, talented, supporting cast coasts the movie along through it’s 105 minute run time. Ray Liotta should not be overlooked for a possible supporting-actor Oscar nomination later this year, his performance is excellent.

The cinematographer used a handheld camera during a few chase scenes, specifically the one near the beginning when Tellis is chasing down a suspect into the playground, and the come off amazing. Just the blurring movement of the camera brings up the intensity of the scene ten-fold, as you can’t see what is going on until the running stops and a split second decision has to be made. The style is similar to genre favorites Se7en and Traffic in the way the movie is shot and filmed. The movie also picks up a sense of individuality by the lack of color throughout. The print is composed of dark blues, grays, and blacks and it gives the movie a distinctly gritty, corrupt feel.

For the faint of heart, you must be warned. The movie is brutal in some of it’s violence. At one point Oak beats a suspect with a billard ball in a sock, and the amount of blood in the scene in which the pregnant women get shot is shocking.

No movie is without it’s problems, and Narc is no exception. Unfortunately, even with great acting and cool camera effects, the movie can’t escape it’s 2D plot and hackneyed way of getting from point to point. I won’t fill this review with spoilers but sometimes the obvious isn’t always true. The movie is entirely enjoyable, even with the lamebrain plot, but it would have been nice to see some more originally infused.

Narc is an excellent film, it’s style, acting, and direction will make you appreciate movies for movies again and not countless strings of cars blowing up like some studios want to feed you these days. If you get a chance to see it in the theatre, jump on it, but we can hopefully expected a feature packed DVD this summer.

Panic Room is a David Fincher movie. There is no doubt about it. From the very opening credit sequence to the closing credit reel, Panic Room has the style, and darkness that inhabit all of Fincher’s other movies including Fight Club, and Se7en.

One thing that David Fincher is known for is his high-budget, engrossing opening sequences and tricky camera effects. Many, including myself, relay the same feelings for a similar director, with a similar style, Sam Raimi.

Panic Room takes place in an 19th century New York Townhouse of sorts. This three floor house was once inhabited by a rich businessman who became so paranoid about anything in his later years that he had a massive security system installed, along with a panic room. A panic room is a small room filled with rations, video monitors, and it’s own phone line, so in the advent of a break in, the family could survive months if they had to. Surrounding the room is four feet of concrete with a generous helping of steel, in one word, impenetrable.

The films main character, Meg (Jodie Foster), is recently divorced from her husband and moves into the house with her daughter Sarah after the old businessman’s death. Unknown to her, a small fortune has been holed up in a safe inside of the room, and when one of the old man’s grandsons becomes disgruntled by the lack of inheritance he received, he enlists the help of Burnham (Forest Whitaker) and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) to get his inheritance. Yes, that Dwight Yoakam, the country singer seems to be expanding, and the scary part is, he does a decent job playing the psychopath that is Raoul.

When Foster’s character discovers the burglars in her house, she takes refuge in the panic room with her diabetic daughter. The film then focuses on the perpetrators various attempts to drive Meg and Sarah from the room so they can break into the safe.

While several plot points and actions are more than cliché the movie doesn’t rely on them to step across the finish line. Focusing on the vision of the subject matter, and how the camera is the audience’s eye into this fictional world, David Fincher makes even the simplest thing very dramatic. At several points during the movie the camera makes it’s way through the banister bars on the staircase for a very subtle, yet dramatic visual effect. Also, at several points during the movie, Fincher uses the same fly by effect he used in Fight Club when appearing from the narrators trash can at work. A close pass by normal household objects leaves you with a sense of awe.

As I mentioned above, the opening credit sequence is so Fincher, there is no other way to describe it. Taking a break from the high energy, techno openings of Fight Club and Se7en, Fincher presents the credits as though they are part of the world. Showing various buildings around New York City, the 3D sans serif characters seem to be apart of, branching off of buildings, casting shadows and reflections. It is very hard to describe, but very, very cool to see.

While falling into more than one cliché here and there, Panic Room is an excellent movie, and very suspenseful at a few chosen times. The acting is very well done and the characters are believable with a script that isn’t full of tacky one-liners and pop-culture references. While I love one-liners and pop-culture references as much as the next guy, it was good to get a break from it all, seeing as I will be experiencing comedy genius next week with the long-overdue release of Big Trouble.