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White to move and mate in two #580 -- Not Exactly a National Treasure, Perhaps, but I Loved it [1]

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Date: 2024-10-27  

So we all have a soft spot for B movies, I surmise, as long as they broadly align with one's interests. 2004's National Treasure fits the bill for me in this regard, having been a Boy Scout (not a high bar to get over, you have to admit). In a simplistic way, appeals to my longing for adventure. Your mileage may vary, of course, and here is what esteemed film critic Roger Ebert thought (well, an excerpt anyway):

Benjamin Franklin Gates is named, of course, after the famous software millionaire. His family of historians has been scorned for generations because of its belief that a vast treasure was brought back from the Crusades by the Knights Templar and has been hidden by the Masons — in this case, Masons who were the Founding Fathers of America. Benjamin's father, Patrick Henry Gates (played by Jon Voight and named after O. Henry), scoffs at the family legend, but his grandfather John Adams Gates (played by Christopher Plummer and named after the inventor of the toilet) gives Benjamin a clue handed down through the generations from Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.

This clue, which involves the word "Charlotte," seems baffling until Benjamin has an A-Ha! and leads an expedition north of the Arctic Circle in search of a 19th century sailing ship which, he calculates, must have frozen in the ice and then been shifted miles inland by the gradual movement of the floes. To say the expedition finds the ship without much trouble is putting it mildly; Benjamin digs about a foot down into the permafrost, and then bends over and wipes clean a brass nameplate that helpfully says "Charlotte."

Clues on the ship lead him to believe the map to the treasure may be written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence — a safe place for it, because such a document would be guarded down through the ages. Of course there is the problem of convincing the National Archives to allow you to remove the Declaration from its vacuum-sealed vault and molest it with lemon juice and a hair dryer. Luckily the National Archivist, Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), named after her scenes in the movie, is convinced by Benjamin, and together they team up to steal the Declaration before the villain (Sean Bean) can steal it first.

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