By Marriya Schwarz | Deputy Editor
After receiving a 45 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, I think it is safe to say that the 2004 American adventure film, National Treasure, had its fair share of problems. Despite this, it was nominated for multiple awards, like the BMI Film & TV Awards for musical score, the Visual Effects Society Awards for best use of models and miniatures, and the World Stunt Awards for Diane Kruger’s deserving stunt-work in kissing Nicolas Cage. The driving force in the film is Benjamin Franklin Gates’ (Nicolas Cage) ego. But first, I believe it would be a disservice if we did not spend a brief moment to touch on the names of these characters. The entire Gates family seems to have taken a page out of Harry Potter’s book. Benjamin Gates’ father is named Patrick Henry Gates, and his grandfather is named John Adams Gates. I feel like this is a concept that we as a society have just collectively suppressed. In conclusion, the Gates family are all big nerds.
But back to Benjamin Gates’ ego: Ben spends the entire movie trying to find a treasure of jewels, precious metals, artifacts, big blue man statues, etc. left by the Knights of Templar. This all began when Mr. Charles Carroll (Terrence Currier), the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence confides in his coachman, Thomas Gates (Jason Earles), that there is a treasure and the secret of it lies with Charlotte. Thomas Gates takes this information and decides to name all of his children weird historic names, guaranteeing that they will be bullied and ridiculed in years to come.
Many years later, Benjamin’s grandfather, John (Christopher Plummer) tells him two things: That the secret of the treasure lies with Charlotte and the hills are alive with the Sound of Music (not really) (but can you imagine?). Although Carroll confided in Thomas Gates that the secret lies with Charlotte in the 1830s, the entire Gates family seems to have made zero progress since then. I bet Carroll is rolling over in his grave knowing that he trusted the biggest secret in American history with Jackson from Hannah Montana.
Therefore, Benjamin Gates makes history for being the only member of the Gates family to actually do anything productive: he finds the Charlotte. The Charlotte is a ship that was stuck in the Canadian Arctic, a nod to the actual Charlotte that was built in 1784 and used to carry convicts. To summarize, this is a fantastic discovery that could lead to incredible historical progress. And within 18 minutes of screen time, Benjamin proceeds to blow it up. This is a recurring theme in the film: Over the span of 2 hours and 11 minutes, Benjamin ruins the Declaration of Independence, a wall at Independence Hall, and the poor grave of Parkington Lane, releasing a pretty nasty pissed off ghost on the entire area of Trinity Church.
Although this is all incredibly problematic, nothing is more unbelievable than when Benjamin Gates, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), and Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) are trying to find the hidden map on the back of the stolen Declaration of Independence. Since they are being trailed by the police, the trio decide to go to Ben’s father’s residence. Once they reach the house, Patrick Henry Gates (Jon Voight) lectures his son on ruining his life to find the treasure. Always a stubborn one, Benjamin continues his search for the hidden map. Once they have the Declaration laid out on the kitchen table, Ben grabs a slice of lemon that they just happen to have and lifts it to the document. It has been established that the acidity of lemon juice is essential to revealing a hidden message. Dr. Chase stops him, getting a Q-tip to spread the lemon juice over the historic artifact. When nothing appears, Patrick Gates tells them that they need heat. The pair leans over and breathes on the document in a weirdly sexual way that left viewers uncomfortable. Their hot breath allows the invisible messages to appear and the two decide that they need more juice and they need more heat. They grab a hair dryer and a bowl of lemons from the refrigerator and begin to get to work.
Let’s pause right there. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, scientifically this is ridiculous. The simplest ‘invisible ink’ is formed using lemon juice or vinegar. To reveal writing, all you need is heat. In the film, Ben and Abigail brush lemon juice all over the document as a ‘developer,’ but really, they would just be essentially using white out on the entire document. Plus, their hot breath would not even remotely be enough heat to reveal the invisible ink.
So, this gets into the biggest plot hole of the whole film: Why on earth did Patrick Henry Gates, with no warning whatsoever, have an entire bowl of lemons in the fridge?
To quickly go over some plot points: They arrive in Philadelphia at about 12:30 AM. It takes about 3 hours to drive from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia, so they had to leave at around 9:30 PM. From the film, it did not look like they spent too long at Ben’s father’s house. This means that they had to get there at around 8:30 PM at the earliest. At this point, Patrick still has warm pizza. Ben even tells his father that it’s late and he should go to bed, but Patrick will not, saying that he isn’t tired. In the clips we get of Patrick’s home, he has a sizable bar with gin, whisky, and other selections. Based on the fact that he orders a large pizza just for himself and the fact that his fridge has little else but a bottle of Pepsi, it seems that Patrick is not a big chef, so he’s not using those lemons for cooking. When Patrick serves the FBI officer, Harvey, iced tea, there are no lemons in it. It does not seem like he’s using it as a garnish there.
In conclusion, Patrick Henry Gates is an alcoholic. He is clearly using it in garnishes for cocktails; that’s the only reason why he would have nine whole lemons in his fridge at once. He blatantly calls himself the “family kook” and feels alienation from the rest of the family. As mentioned in this film and discussed in the next film, he is still not over his divorce with Ben’s mother. Benjamin Franklin Gates spent so long looking for this famed treasure, that he could not even see that his family situation was falling apart right in front of his nose. Maybe the true national treasure was the clarity he found along the way.
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