Five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and another man,
both members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, enter a tavern and approach
Thomas Gates (Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather). They produce a diary containing
an encrypted message, and entice Thomas, a well-known puzzle solver, to decode
it. Thomas recognizes the message as using the Playfair cipher and begins to
translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for Ford's Theatre to assassinate
President Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, a clue to a treasure map, and realizes
the men are still loyal to the Confederate cause and have a sinister motive
for finding the treasure. Unfortunately, he realizes this too late. The Confederate
man pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him if he does not hand over the
diary, however he is distracted from Thomas when chaos erupts in the bar over
news of Lincoln's assassination. Thomas rips several pages from the diary and
throws them in the fireplace. The gunman shoots him and attempts to retrieve
the pages, only succeeding in saving a fragment of a page. The dying Thomas
gasps, "The war is over," but the man disagrees, stating, "You're
wrong about that, the war has only just begun," and rushes from the bar.
With his final breath, Thomas tells his distraught son, Charles Gates, "The
debt that all men pay."
Over 140 years later, Ben Gates is telling his great-great-grandfather's story
at a conference on Civilian Heroes to great acclaim until black market dealer
Mitch Wilkinson shows one of the eighteen missing pages of John Wilkes Booth's
diary, with Thomas Gates' name on it, convincing everyone that Thomas was the
mastermind behind the Lincoln assassination. Ben sets out to prove the innocence
of his great-great-grandfather.
Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers a cipher pointing to Édouard Laboulaye
hidden on the back of the diary page. He travels to Paris, where he finds a
cryptic clue engraved on the torch of the scale model of the Statue of Liberty
on the Île des Cygnes in Paris, referring to the two Resolute desks. Ben
heads to Buckingham Palace, seeking out the closer of the two desks. With the
help of his friend Riley Poole and estranged girlfriend, Abigail Chase, he is
able to sneak into the Queen's office to find an ancient wooden plank hidden
in the desk. He is then pursued by Wilkinson, who, having broken into his father
Patrick Gates' house, has cloned Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's
whereabouts. Wilkinson eventually obtains the piece, but not before Ben manages
to photograph the symbols carved into the plank.
At Ben's insistence, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, Emily, for help
in translating the mysterious glyphs. She does so, but points out that some
of the glyphs are partial, leading Ben to conclude another plank must be hidden
in the other Resolute desk, which is located in the Oval Office. With the unknowing
help of Abigail's new love interest, who works for the White House, Ben and
Abigail coax their way into the office to see the desk, where Ben discovers
that the second plank is missing. However, he does find a stamp bearing the
seal of the Book of Secrets. According to Riley, the Book of Secrets contains
documents collected by Presidents for Presidents' eyes only, covering such controversial
subjects as the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Area 51.
Cast : Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight,
Helen Mirren, Ed Harris
Studio/Banner : Excel
Format : VCD
Language : Hindi |
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