‘Treasure’ follows familiar pattern

VAN NOVACK

Jerry Bruckheimer is a man who evokes strong reactions. Bruckheimer

has long been associated with making loud, financially successful

movies where crashing cars and explosions share top billing with the

actors.

Some of his more successful past efforts include “Bad Boys,”

“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Gone

in Sixty Seconds,” “Armageddon,” “Con Air” and “The Rock.” This style

of moviemaking has made Bruckheimer a very rich man, but certainly

not a favorite of the critics.

The latest Bruckheimer production is “National Treasure,” starring

Nicolas Cage. This film has been generally savaged by critics, but

still became the largest grossing picture in the nation in its first

weekend of release. Interestingly, there are some Internet postings

claiming the negative reviews are a conspiracy to discredit the film

by the Freemasons, who are so prominently featured in “National

Treasure.”

Commercial success in spite of critical sniping has been a pattern

throughout Bruckheimer’s career and will probably continue until the

American public stops paying to see the films he produces.

“National Treasure” turns out to be a highly entertaining film

that borrows certain concepts from both “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and

the “The Da Vinci Code.”

Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates, a somewhat scatterbrained

historian and engineer who has devoted his entire adult life to the

search for a mythical treasure. Ben represents at least the fifth

generation of his family so obsessed. His grandfather, John Adams

Gates (Christopher Plummer), died fully convinced the treasure was

real. Ben’s father, Patrick Henry Gates (Jon Voight), spent twenty

years searching for it, only to conclude it was a clever ruse

perpetuated by America’s founding fathers in an attempt to distract

the British.

According to the legend Ben’s grandfather imparted to him as a

young boy, the treasure has existed since the time of the Egyptians.

Over the centuries, different civilizations have captured the

treasure, added to it and then hid it again. Finally, the Knights

Templar became the guardians of the treasure and eventually

predecessors to the secret society of Freemasons. The treasure was

last held by the founding fathers, many of them Freemasons, who

thought it too vast to belong to any one nation or leader. While the

treasure’s location has never been found, an elaborate set of clues

were left behind, each frustratingly leading not to the fortune, but

to another clue.

One such clue led Ben and his wealthy supporter Ian Howe (Sean

Bean) to the Charlotte, an old sailing vessel buried in the Arctic

icecap. Once again, the treasure is nowhere to be found, but another

clue leads Ben to believe there is an invisible map on the back of

the Declaration of Independence.

Knowing he will never be allowed to conduct scientific experiments

on the Declaration, Ben figures the search is over. However, Ian

reveals an unscrupulous past and vows to steal the Declaration so he

may recover the treasure.

In order to thwart Ian and his nefarious associates, Ben and his

computer genius friend Riley (Justin Bartha) make inquiries about

gaining access to the Declaration. Their last resort is to speak to a

documents expert at the National Archives named Dr. Abigail Chase

(Diane Kruger), who dismisses them as kooks. Having exhausted all

available channels, Ben and Riley set out to steal the Declaration

themselves to keep it from falling into Ian’s hands.

What ensues is a wild ride through American history and the shady

doings of the Freemasons, as Ben plays cat-and-mouse with Ian and his

henchmen. Several national monuments, museums and other buildings are

featured in the search. In the process, new clues are found and

interpreted or misinterpreted, as our heroes attempt to stay one step

ahead of the bad guys. As would be expected in a Jerry Bruckheimer

film, there are many suspenseful elements to keep us on the edge of

our seats.

“National Treasure” shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than

other action adventure films. Sure, there is an air of authenticity

suggested by the constant references to U.S. history. However, in the

final analysis, such pseudo-intellectualism is merely a plot device.

The chances of such a treasure existing or of the members of one

family stumbling across all the numerous clues are pretty slim.

Nonetheless, suspending rational thought processes for the two hours

it takes to view “National Treasure” is worth the effort.

Perhaps Bruckheimer is mellowing a bit as he approaches his 60th

year. Although the truly horrible “Bad Boys II” was sandwiched

between them, Bruckheimer’s recent efforts -- including “King

Arthur,” “Veronica Guerin” and the aforementioned “Pirates of the

Caribbean” -- have been fairly subdued.

Who knows, maybe one day Bruckheimer will produce a film loved by

audiences and critics.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife

Elizabeth.

‘Kinsey’ biopic cuts to the chase

“Hello, my name is Dr. Alfred Kinsey, and I’m doing a study of sex

behavior. May I ask you a few questions?”

This is Kinsey’s (Liam Neeson) opening line to potential

interviewees midway through writer/director Bill Condon’s new biopic,

“Kinsey.” These two seemingly innocuous sentences epitomize who this

character is: a guy who cuts to the chase in order to have a frank

conversation about a taboo subject. By approaching people in a

friendly, nonjudgmental way, he displays a knack for peeling away

society’s stigmas and putting his subjects at ease during a more

repressed time.

The real Alfred Kinsey entered the public consciousness with the

1948 publication of “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” one of the

first serious works that addressed sexual behavior in men. The book

was the result of a massive research study that compiled copious data

through countless one-on-one interviews conducted by Kinsey and his

small trio of male assistants. The release of the book made America

realize that what people did sexually and what they thought they did

were two very different things. It elevated Kinsey to celebrity

status, although it also made him many enemies: holding up a mirror

to a nation’s ignorance isn’t going to be appreciated by everyone.

Making a biopic is a particularly slippery slope. How do you

distill someone’s life down to two hours? Most films in this genre

fail because they don’t focus on a particular aspect of the subject’s

life and end up making an episodic mess that feels like a series of

random events that don’t quite string together into a cohesive whole.

For the most part, “Kinsey” avoids these missteps. It has a unifying

theme and each scene builds on the last. My only real complaint is

that it doesn’t always feel organic. When I know the reason why a

scene has been inserted into the film, it pulls me out of the movie.

For example, a great deal of the movie shows Kinsey breaking down

sexual taboos, teaching people there is no “normal” sexual behavior,

and acts previously deemed deviant have probably been mislabeled. To

balance this out, Kinsey does an interview with a man whose sexual

history is criminal and revolting, and even Kinsey is made to feel

queasy upon listening to the details.

From a writing standpoint, this scene is necessary, but it’s done

in such an extreme manner I knew immediately what its function was.

It goes a little over-the-top. Maybe if they pulled back a little, it

wouldn’t have felt so jarring. The film also feels a little

anticlimactic in its final scenes. Things feel tied up a little too

neatly.

But this is nitpicking. “Kinsey” boasts some impressive

performances from Neeson, Laura Linney and Peter Sarsgaard, among

others. It utilizes some clever storytelling devices to get you into

Kinsey’s head right from the start -- using a series of black and

white flashbacks that show Kinsey training his assistants to ask

questions in a matter-of-fact, impartial manner that puts the subject

at ease. He does this by making them ask him all the questions they

will later ask others and, as a result, we learn about Kinsey, who

honestly and openly gives answers. This device establishes the main

character while simultaneously introducing us to his research

methods.

What makes “Kinsey” fascinating is the conflict at its heart:

Kinsey distilled his sex research down to science, leaving little

room to consider the psychological and emotional impact of love. At

one point, Kinsey explains that there is no way to measure love and

therefore, no method to quantify it scientifically. He himself is

able to separate the two issues in his head rather successfully. It

takes him a while to realize those around him are more fragile and,

well, human.

Nowhere is this clearer than when Kinsey has sex with one of his

male assistants (Sarsgaard) and then tells his wife Mac (Linney) in a

matter-of-fact tone. When Mac breaks down in tears, Kinsey insists

there’s no reason for her to be upset -- she’s the one he loves, the

encounter was purely physical, it’s only social constraints that are

causing her pain.

When Mac responds, “Maybe those constraints are there so people

don’t hurt each other,” the theme of “Kinsey” is clear: it’s healthy

to discuss sexual issues in a frank manner, but if you totally remove

feelings from the equation, you might set off an emotional time bomb.

* ALLEN MacDONALD, 30, recently earned a master’s in screenwriting

from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.