Hollywood action man, Jerry Bruckheimer

by Fraser Newham

t 59, the most powerful man in Hollywood has had so many hit movies that his name, not the director, is more often associated with the films. A few have received thumbs up from critics, "Black Hawk Down", "Pirates of the Caribbean", but most haven't, "Coyote Ugly" and "Kangaroo Jack" and "Pearl Harbor". As if the man cares.

In a Hollywood Hotel, cast and filmmakers are gathered to tout the mega-producer's newest release, "National Treasure". It seems everyone loves him, Nicolas Cage, included. "Jerry always seems to add something unusual or new to his stories," says the actor, "and yet he has incredible commercial sensibilities. It's a wonderful combination."

Few in Hollywood would argue. In an industry that goes all out for the gold, Bruckheimer is King Midas. For more than 20 years, from Beverly Hills Cop to Top Gun to Armageddon, the Detroit-born movie mogul has demonstrated a consistent ability to produce big thrills, and big box office returns.

With "National Treasure", Bruckheimer applies his golden touch to the classical treasure hunt, albeit with a cosmic conspiracy twist. The references to dark theories involving Freemasons, Knights Templar and the Holy Grail seems and all-too-obvious attempt to cash in on Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Not so, says Bruckheimer, his project was initiated eight years ago.

Bruckheimer famously invented the high concept movie – for a movie to be a commercial success, he decreed, it should be possible to sum up the basic premise in 25 words or less. And this latest project's evolution speaks volumes about the way Bruckheimer's Hollywood works.

Originally, Oren Aviv, president of Bueno Vista (marketing) and later an executive producer on "National Treasure", came up with an idea – a heist movie about a bid to steal the Declaration of Independence. Together with creative partner Charles Segars, They developed the movie – "these guys need to steal it, because on the back there's, like, some kind of treasure map?"

Clearly their less than twenty-five words were good enough; Hollywood took notice. Aviv and Segars approached director Jon Turteltaub ("While You Were Sleeping", "Phenomenon"). Turteltaub then hired scriptwriter Jim Kouf – and finally brought the project to Bruckheimer.

This was in 1998; later, second and third screenwriters were employed, adding the Knights Templar, et al angles – perhaps in reaction to the success of the Da Vinci Code, perhaps not. The studio claims the additions were pure coincidence.

In any case, what began as a heist film became a historical treasure hunt, with marketing that emphasized the plot's connections to Masonic conspiracy.

This may sound like moviemaking by committee, but the finished product is anything but boring. In fact, national Treasure is a well-honed piece of commercial filmmaking – the sort in which Hollywood excels. In other words, this is popular American propaganda at its best – quality creative work that unashamedly displays it patriotism.

For leading man the filmmakers chose Nicolas Cage, revisiting the soft-edged action-man persona of Bruckheimer hits, "Con Air" and "The Rock". Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates the descendant of an old American family that passes on, from generation to generation, secret clues to the location of the mythic treasure (Gates family myth holds that the treasure was brought to the colonies and hidden by the Masonic heroes of the American Revolution, including George Washington). Gates pursues the quest not for money (he's the hero in "National Treasure"), but to prove that his family, dismissed by historians as cranks for more than a century, has been right all along.

"It [the role] was a surprisingly difficult job," says Cage, even though it doesn't appear so after the more obvious challenges of Adaptation's reality-bending twin act or Matchstick Men's obsessive-compulsive con man.

"One of the challenges was to memorize dialogue that seemed like incomprehensible gobbledygook about clues and riddles and puzzles. So I was doing it by rote until I could kind of understand what I was talking about. It was like trying to learn a language, and hopefully make it understandable to the audience."

At first glance, this looks like another installment in the Indiana Jones series, but look a little deeper and it's soon apparent that Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg are very different Hollywood creatures. Whip-cracking, Nazi-fighter Indiana Jones, was, of course, hugely profitable, but the series was not a typical product of the Hollywood machine. The Jones character came from the mind of one man, George Lucas; ‘Indy' was a writer's personal vision. "National Treasure", in contrast, was conceived by ‘suits' and built brick by brick.

Bruckheimer isn't the sort to take risks á la Spielberg or George Lucas; nor is he a man of vision. But he does understand good story-telling. "When you make a treasure hunt movie," he says, "I think the clues that lead you forward have to be really smart and based on true history, which is what we did with National Treasure."

What's more, Bruckheimer understands his audience. National Treasure features some great action sequences – in particular the heist at the Library of Congress. "We went to people who have inside knowledge of complex heists," Bruckheimer explains, "and asked them ‘how would it be possible to break into a completely secure building that was designed to outsmart thieves?'"

As in all of Bruckheimer's films, there\'s almost a fetishist's attention to detail, with large sums of money spent, for example, on replicating alarm systems. Bruckheimer even has a former Navy Seal on the payroll, acting as technical consultant, in addition to Don Ferrarone, the former DEA agent who cracked the "French Connection" case. These experts, who advise the government on security, add authenticity to the movie, as do numerous other details.

Say Bruckheimer: "We take simple things, like the dollar bill, which is something you use every day but never really look at, and we reveal secrets that are hidden in it. After you see this film, you'll look at the dollar in a whole new way."

Bruckheimer's critics, of whom there are many, say that all his films are about dollars. And that his style is nothing more than moviemaking by the numbers. Indeed, one critic says National Treasure "progresses with all the predictability of a roller-coaster." Predictable or not, audiences seem to like the ride – when the film opened in the US last November it took in some 35 million dollars the first weekend.

In any case, Bruckheimer says he never reads reviews – good or bad.

Moviemaking, he says, is about entertainment, telling a good tale, with great characters, that get you hooked and take you on a ride.

True, National Treasure's character-driven script is interpreted by an accomplished cast. Cage, as the son-of-Indiana=Jones, turns in a solid performance, minus his usual melodramatics. He plays straight man to Justin Bartha, who gets the best lines, including, "Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?"

Most everyone, it seems. The audience's live affair with Jerry Bruckheimer and the 25-word-pitch won't be ending any time soon.

National Treasure

Director: Johan Turteltaub

Cast: Nicholas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer

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