National Treasure

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You can believe what you want. You’re a grown person.

National Treasure is the kind of movie in which Arctic temperatures don’t consistently cause the moisture in your warm breath to condense. It’s the kind of film in which centuries-old liquid fuel hasn’t evaporated, the kind in which conspirators find the steps of the Lincoln Monument the best place to discuss their illegal and highly dangerous plans. In short, it’s a film not to be taken too seriously, like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Mummy. Unfortunately, aside from Nicolas Cage (who himself seems to be slumming), neither the characters nor the actors themselves are anywhere near as engaging as in those two films.

National Treasure also demonstrates three other things: first, that Jon Voight hasn’t learned anything since Anaconda; second, that it is possible for Harvey Keitel to repeat himself, simultaneously channeling performances from Thelma and Louise, Clockers and Mortal Thoughts; and third, that Christopher Plummer, lo these many years after The Sound of Music, is still one of America’s most engaging film actors (even if he isn’t American).

But all of this is mere window-dressing for the adventure tale that is National Treasure. At its core, the film wants to heart-warmingly remind us that America’s founding fathers really were decently noble fellows who believed that government, like the “lost” treasure of the Knights Templar, is best when not hoarded but shared of the people, by the people and for the people. And there are times in this movie when the archaic language of our government’s framers actually manages to stir some of that feeling as the overlong story winds its way through various abandoned passages and absurd plot complications.

In order to appreciate the film’s point, though, you’ve got to buy into one basic premise: that all the wacky stories you’ve ever been told are actually true. In Robert Gates’ case, he was told by his grandfather of a mysterious clue left by the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, a clue leading to the treasure of the Masons and Knights Templar—a monumentally historic treasure hoarded under the temple in Jerusalem and discovered there by crusading medieval knights and eventually spirited away to the New World.

Gates’ father, however, is a cynic—darn him! He tells his son, “The legend says that the treasure was buried to keep it from the British. But what really happened was that the legend was invented to keep the British occupied searching for buried treasure. The treasure is a myth.”

In other words, says Gates senior, attractive myths have always been fashioned to keep folks distracted from the truth. Sound familiar to anyone? Sound like what’s always said about White House press releases? Maybe like what author Dan Brown proposes in The DaVinci Code? According to our cultural skeptics, it’s all “bread and circuses,” as the Roman poet Juvenal remarked.

It’s to National Treasure’s credit, I suppose, that Cage’s Gates (who at one point significantly uses the pseudonym “Paul Brown”) doesn’t buy into the old man’s pessimism. “I refuse to believe that,” he replies. To which his father rejoins, “Well, you can believe what you want. You’re a grown person.”

And scores of clerical critics, I imagine, have commended this film for siding with “myth,” for asserting that the outlandish stories of our childhood—like those we heard in Sunday School—are actually true.

But here’s where the Christian myth parts ways with National Treasure’s rather gnostic, hidden-knowledge-dependent approach to the whole subject. The central “mystery” of Christianity has long been revealed: salvation, the True Treasure in Christ, is not just available to the Illuminati or the Masons or Knights Templar, or any other private club. It’s available to all who believe.

So believe what you want. You’re a grown person. But have a clue.

Continue:
—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film (PDF)
—Spiritual Connections