OK, kids, gather around for a history lesson – or at least Hollywood’s version of one. John Turteltaub’s “National Treasure” proves to be mildly diverting as a scavenger hunt with a dollop of American history thrown in.
Don’t worry about the facts – they never give you enough to pass an elementary school test. Your biggest memory will probably be that many of the Founding Fathers were Masons. True enough, but not really at the top of the list of what every American should know.
In “National Treasure” ($29.99), Nicolas Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates, whose family has been obsessed for 150 years with a quest to find an ancient treasure that secret societies – the Knights Templar, the Masons – had guarded for centuries.
Afraid the British would get the treasure during the Revolution, one of the Founding Fathers hid it, leaving clues near or on (in the case of the Declaration of Independence) now-historical sites.
Aided by an attractive National Archivist official named Abigail (Diane Kruger) and his partner (Justin Bartha), Ben finds himself vying with a tycoon, Ian Howe (Sean Bean).
OK, now that we’ve tossed out logic and facts, what’s left? Not much, but Turtletaub keeps things moving along with chase scenes and Cage’s usual quirky performance. There is only one moment when there is slight reference to any reality. That’s when Ben, secretly justifying his actions in stealing the Declaration before Howe does, offers a toast to treason, noting that’s what the Founding Fathers committed in order to secure freedom. If only “National Treasure” had added a few more gems like that.
There are a number of OK behind-the-scenes featurettes on the disc, plus a puzzle to find some bonus features.
“The Big Red One”
Thanks to the efforts of film critic and historian Richard Schickel, 40 minutes have been added back to Samuel Fuller’s 1980 World War II movie, “The Big Red One.” The added footage has turned a very good film into a near masterpiece.
Fuller, a World War II combat veteran, tells the story of four young soldiers – Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco and Kelly Ward – and their hard-bitten sergeant (Lee Marvin) as they fight their way through North Africa, Italy and then Northern Europe, including D-Day.
It is not a story of glory but one of survival, which in Fuller’s eyes is the only glory of war. There are amazing, haunting scenes in the film – from sickening shots of close-quarters combat to one where French actress Stephane Audran, feigning madness, dances through an asylum cutting throats of unwitting Germans.
“The Big Red One” is one of the best war movies made.
NEW ON DVD & VIDEO
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
*** When Air Kentucky pilot Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) tells moody, melancholy oceanographer Steve Zissou he might be his son, Zissou (Bill Murray) is open to the possibility and invites Ned on the next filmmaking expedition. Wes Anderson’s “Life Aquatic” is as much a nod to Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” as it is homage to Jacques Cousteau, the French oceanographer who netted school kids’ imaginations with entrancing images of the life aquatic. “I hate fathers and never wanted to be one,” Zissou says later. Fathers and sons, families made not of blood but of need and choice, are some of the themes that give ballast to this odd comedy. Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Anjelica Huston and Jeff Goldblum also star. PG; 97 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
In Good Company ***½ This may put a Hollywood veneer on unemployment and family problems, but writer-director Paul Weitz (“About a Boy”) knows how to find the deeply human moment in nearly every scene. Dennis Quaid plays an aging advertising executive suddenly working under a boss, Topher Grace, half his age. Plus he’s having a baby at age 52 and his college-age daughter is dating the obnoxious young boss. Warm acting and a good script move things along. PG-13; 110 minutes (Michael Booth)
Racing Stripes ** On a stormy road, a circus caravan grinds to a halt. When the trucks roll again, a passenger has been left behind. So begins “Racing Stripes,” the slight yet hard-to-resist film of a zebra (voiced by Frankie Muniz) that grows up on a run-down farm in Kentucky believing he’s a thoroughbred racer. Thank goodness for widower and former thoroughbred trainer Nolan Walsh and daughter Channing. As it trots toward a predictable conclusion, “Racing Stripes” still manages laughs in the midst of lessons about dads and daughters, bigotry and tolerance. PG; 90 minutes (Kennedy)
