‘I’m gonna steal the Declaration of Independence.’ – Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates in National Treasure

National Treasure (2004) is a deeply silly movie.

It’s a movie that I vividly recall watching at the cinema in my hometown of Austin, Texas. I was around thirteen at the time, and, even at that age, I knew it was silly. It’s the story of American history buff/treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) who figures out that there is an invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence and decides to steal it before it falls in the hands of some baddies. What follows is a race against time as the FBI, and the baddies, try to track down Cage before he can decode the map and find the treasure of the Knights Templar (?), which has been hidden by the Freemasons (???). It’s a very Dan Brown-esque story (conspiracy theories, hidden ‘clues’, secret societies etc.).

So when I decided to rewatch this for ‘Madeira Mondays’ (as part of my 4th of July inspired series of posts), I had one question in mind: Is this a fun enough watch that I would recommend it? Is it ‘good bad’ (i.e. so bad it’s actually funny to watch)? Or is it genuinely ‘good’ (i.e. works on the intended levels, as a satisfying action/adventure story?). Sadly, it falls somewhere in the middle and was, overall, pretty dull and too long. Which is disappointing, considering that it’s a story about a treasure hunt and I like most of the actors in it.

One of the things that keeps it from being ‘good bad’ is that the actors are actually too talented for it to really suck. Nicolas Cage is incredibly deadpan throughout the whole thing, and he has such a bizarre and unique charisma that it kind of works somehow. His love interest, Dr Abigail Chase (Diana Kruger) also works as a somewhat cerebral archivist who is both annoyed and intrigued by Gate’s treasure hunting antics (I also liked the choice to make her a German character – the actress is from Germany. There’s a good line when Gates notices her slight accent and asks: ‘You’re not American?’ And she says: ‘I am an American, I just wasn’t born here.’ Nice). And how could Sean Bean not work as the baddie (I’ve already forgotten his character’s name) obsessed with finding the treasure (guess he gave up trying to get The One Ring. Sorry! I had to make a Lord of the Rings joke!). These people are too talented for the film to really and truly stink.

Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), Benjamin Gates (Nicholas Cage) and Justin Bartha (Riley Poole) defacing the Declaration of Independence in order to find a hidden treasure map on the back, Image accessed via IMDB

Also, I enjoyed that even the names in this are silly and on-the-nose. Mr. Gates is a treasure hunter, alongside Dr. Chase.

I also enjoyed the film’s fairly bonkers thesis statement, which is basically that extralegal things are totally okay sometimes, if you do them for the right reasons. Gates draws a hilarious parallel between himself and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence (which he correctly identifies as ‘high treason’ at the time), by saying that both he and they are doing something that is against the law, but they are doing it for the right reasons. The movie isn’t self-important enough to take this thesis very seriously, or to really interrogate this concept of when it is ‘okay’ to break the law, if you believe the laws are unjust. That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to see Sean Bean blowing up a 300 year old pirate ship (which is something that happens in this movie).

I’m not even going to touch on the ‘historical accuracy’ of this movie, because the movie clearly doesn’t care about that. But I don’t think you’ll come away with it having learned anything ‘accurate’ about early America (except maybe that the founders, by signing the Declaration, were doing something illegal at the time and would very much have been executed if they had lost the rebellion, as Gates points out).

So, sadly, I’d say don’t bother with National Treasure. Unless you are a particular fan of Dan Brown type stuff, or you love Indianan Jones and you want a somewhat crappier version of that. But, all in all, if you want a ridiculous movie about early America, I’d actually direct you to Beyond the Mask (which I reviewed earlier this year), which is an independent ‘Christian’ movie about an outlaw during the Revolutionary War (think: budget Zorro) and is much sillier, stranger, and ultimately a funnier watch than National Treasure.

PS Today’s Featured Image is ‘A British Man of War before the Rock of Gibraltar’ by Thomas Whitcombe, created in the late 18th/early 19th century, accessed via Wikimedia

‘Madeira Mondays’ is a series of blog posts exploring Early American history and historical fiction. I’m not a historian, but an author and poet who is endlessly fascinated by this time period. I am also currently writing/researching a novel set during the American Revolution and recently finished a Doctorate of Fine Art looking at how creative writers access America’s eighteenth-century past. 

Follow the blog for a new post every Monday and thanks for reading!