LIBERTAS REVIEW: National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
— Dirty Harry @ 2:43 pm
[I'm going to see this on Saturday with every member of my family I can corral. I loved the first one.]
I never noticed before last night, but Hollywood’s given me a twitch. It’s a horrible malady I discovered about forty-minutes into my screening of National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (opening everywhere tomorrow) after Nic Cage talked about his reverence for Abraham Lincoln and said of people in general, ”When someone dies for their country, I believe they should be honored.” A few minutes later it happened again when speaking of the U.S. President’s desk, Jon Voight told the cast, “The most brilliant men of the last hundred years sat at that desk.”
Maybe it’s not a twitch. More of a flinch, perhaps. Because I cringed during those moments, and a few others like them, waiting for the cliched, cynical Hollywood asterisk, caveat, smart-mouthed reply, eye-roll… But it never came. Because just like its predecessor Book of Secrets is an unabashedly patriotic film, respectful of our traditions [simple-minded], history [racist history], and lore [imperialist myth of our own exceptionalism] found in this great country of ours [found on a part of Mother Earth soaked in the blood of the Native American], and used by the filmmakers to launch grand adventures [twaddle, worn thinner than my elbow patches] from.
Here’s something strange about me. I love hearing good things about my country and its founders. Not because I’m blind to flaws, but to quote Victor Davis Hanson, “You don’t have to be perfect to be good.” And we’re pretty damned good and this film industry of ours has spent decades trying to make us forget that. It’s gotten so crazy that today patriotism and sincerity are the new “edgy”. Paul Haggis, George Clooney, Oliver Stone, Susan Sarandon and their ungrateful, icky ilk are about as edgy as milk. In fact they’re the cool kids; the jocks, the in-crowd, the PopularBots. It’s producer Jerry Bruckheimer who’s the iconoclast out here and I just want to stop for a second to say thank you to him, Nic Cage, and director Jon Turteltaub for a very refreshing piece of entertainment.
The film opens the night of Lincoln’s assassination. John Wilkes Booth asks Thomas Gates to decode a cypher for him. More than happy to help (until he discovers who he’s working for), Gates manages to pass some of the information to his young son before being gunned down for refusing to finish the job. That son will grow up to tell his amazing story to his own grandson, Patrick Gates (Jon Voight), and this information will come in handy when Thomas’s name is found on a missing page of Booth’s diary threatening to forever blacken the name of Gates as a co-conspirator in the assassination “of the man who brought this country together.”
Much has changed since we last met our protagonists. Ben Gates (Cage) and Abigail (Diane Kruger) are in the middle of an acrimonious breakup, Riley (Justin Bartha) has lost all of the treasure money he got in the last film to the IRS — “Do you know what the taxes are on $5 million? $6 million. — and Ben’s Dad Patrick (Voight) is tired of wading through his newly single son’s boxes. But soon these all look like luxury problems when Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows up with the missing diary page and all-involved quickly realize that the only way to save the honor of the family name is to find the ancient city of gold Booth and the Confederates were after in order to fund a Civil War do-over.
The film sets up any number of difficult bread crumbs for Ben & Co. to find and follow, including a break-in at Buckingham Palace, the Oval Office, and a fairly clever scene where Ben kidnaps the President (Bruce Greenwood — one of my favorite actors) in order to get him alone and convince him to give them access to the President’s Book of Secrets, a tome started by George Washington which holds the truths about every national secret from the assassination of JFK to Area 51.
The first half of the film is paced breathlessly and is very clever. Watching the four main characters work together, bicker, and put the pieces together is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, as these films tend to do, the spectacle slowly overtakes story with a series of good-looking but unexceptional set-pieces. But by this time you like the characters enough that their arguing and bonding as they dodge rolling boulders and risk rising waters keeps things moving along briskly.
If you’re looking for an existential, thinking-man’s actioner, move along. If it’s an entertaining Saturday afternoon thrill-ride with enjoyable characters and more than a few laughs that won’t insult your refusal to hate America, this is just the ticket. That doesn’t mean the movie’s dumb. Far from it. The ideas here that hold the puzzle together and the cleverness our characters utilize to unlock it are pure rocket science when compared to the lame-o, brain-dead mystery Paul Haggis came up with for In The Valley Of Our Troops Are All Animals. But Treasure never loses sight of the mission to remain an enjoyable, fast paced, piece of family entertainment.
There’s a terrifice scene where the President is so overwhelmed by Ben’s respect for his country and the office of the presidency that the President says, ”You know, people don’t feel that way about those things anymore.” Ben responds, “No. But they want to.” Yes, we do, and movies like this most certainly help.
And another thing we want is for National Treasure: Book of Secrets to kick Charlie Wilson’s ass all over the place this weekend.
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