A gem of a guilty pleasure

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2004)

Ever since he was a little boy, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) has had one major life goal: to find the 'treasure beyond imagining' that his grandfather told him about 30 years ago. Many of his ancestors have also sought it; all of them came up empty-handed. It's easy to see why, since the cryptic messages that might reveal its location turn out to be hidden in the Arctic Circle, on the wall of Philadelphia's Independence Hall and even on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
Just try convincing the staff at the National Archives to let you examine that item up close.
How Gates unravels the tangled web of clues  while dodging a band of thieves who are also on the trail of the treasure  makes for an enjoyable adventure in 'National Treasure,' a lightweight caper comedy-thriller that benefits enormously from a strong cast and the breezy touch of director Jon Turteltaub ('While You Were Sleeping,' 'Phenomenon'). The 'North by Northwest' of a new generation it is not, but 'Treasure' provides two hours of easy escapism, several good laughs and a few 'how are they going to get out of this one?' thrills.
After a patch of overwrought performances in some fairly awful films  such as '8mm' and 'Snake Eyes'  it's a pleasure to see Cage unwinding a bit and giving his audience a chance to smile instead of cringe. He's obviously having a high old time as Ben, who frequently seems like Indiana Jones without the whip, and his carefree attitude proves to be infectious.
Cage is delightfully teamed with Justin Bartha, who all but steals the show as Riley Poole, a tech geek who's coerced into helping Ben on his mission. While Ben is patient and unflappable, Riley tends to be anxious and easily irritated. Faced with yet another in a lengthy chain of mini-mysteries, Riley becomes crabby: 'Why can't they just say, 'Go to this place and here's the treasure. Spend it wisely'?'
Later, when someone asks how a secret hideout could possibly have been constructed, they're told it was built in the same way as the pyramids and the Great Wall of China. 'Yeah, the aliens helped them,' Riley adds.
Also at Ben's side is curator Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who waffles between guarding the priceless artifacts in the National Archives and helping Ben and Riley outwit their ex-partner Ian (Sean Bean), who is now racing them to the hiding place of the long-lost cache of riches.
As he's in the process of stealing the Declaration of Independence to keep it out of Ian's reach, Ben reminds Abigail he's merely following in the defiant footsteps of the founding fathers who signed their names on that precious document. 'Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered and  my personal favorite  had their entrails cut out and burned,' Ben notes. He's not so much a fortune seeker as he is a 'treasure protector.'
Jon Voight adds a note of gravity as Ben's disapproving dad and Harvey Keitel turns up late in the game as a cop who keeps insisting 'somebody's gotta go to jail' as a result of all this. The screenplay also includes an irreverent little poke at the real-life problems within the government's intelligence agencies in a scene in which agents are forced to admit that they had received a tip that the Declaration was going to be stolen, but they didn't act on it  because they didn't consider the information credible.
'National Treasure' isn't particularly credible either, but its bubbly mix of action, humor and suspense makes it a gem of a guilty pleasure.