Where Oh Where?

Rating: 7/10 (2 December 2005)

Globe trotting adventurer Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) is inspired in his youth by his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to seek out the final location of a fabulous treasure hidden somewhere in the Philidelphia. With an enormous fortune at stake and a family honor to restore, Gates sets out to decipher a nearly endless progression and certainly complex set of clues bequeathed to him by the early Masons. The search takes him to the frozen Arctic and then back through the winding cobblestone streets of Boston. Each cryptic secret unraveled, leads him to another and then another and so on. Along the way, he must compete with an equally competent and certainly ruthless team of fellow treasure hunters. Further, they must stay clear of the Federal police, and try not to disappoint his father. What is discovered is that whoever designed the map's instructions did not wish to make the treasure easy to find. As a result, three generations of Gates are involved in the hide-and-go seek game of a lifetime. A unique film for Cage as we tend to view him as the epitome of bad guys. Good story too.****