Action adventure starring Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, whose family has been charged with protecting a fabulous treasure trove hidden by the Founding Fathers of America, the whereabouts of which can only be discovered by decoding an elaborate series of ciphers. When Benjamin uncovers a plot to steal the treasure, he embarks on a desperate mission to find it before it falls into the wrong hands.
This seemingly shameless attempt to cash in on the success of novel The Da Vinci Code is part historical detective story, part conspiracy thriller and part action adventure. But director Jon Turteltaub never quite finds a successful way to marry all these elements together. An almost comatose Nicolas Cage sleepwalks his way through the role of Benjamin Franklin Gates, who embarks on a cross-country treasure hunt to discover the whereabouts of booty hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. En route, there are some limp action moments (although a sequence involving the theft of the Declaration of Independence is well handled), colourless characters (Sean Bean's villain is particularly bland) and sluggish storytelling (the clues to the fortune's location are frighteningly reminiscent of 1980s game show 3-2-1). Yet, against the odds, this Jerry Bruckheimer production still has enough to keep the undemanding interested in the predictable outcome.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Benjamin Franklin Gates | Nicolas Cage |
| Patrick Gates | Jon Voight |
| Agent Sadusky | Harvey Keitel |
| Dr Abigail Chase | Diane Kruger |
| Ian Howe | Sean Bean |
| Riley Poole | Justin Bartha |
| John Adams Gates | Christopher Plummer |
| Young Ben Gates | Hunter Gomez |
| Shaw | David Dayan Fisher |
| Powell | Stewart Finlay-McLennan |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Jon Turteltaub |
