Netflix’s Finding ‘Ohana breaks a major treasure movie trope with its teen hunters, crafting a realistic and inspirational ending.
In many treasure-hunting movies, there’s always that trope where the heroes find the loot and use it in the end. In the Indiana Jones series and National Treasure, the haul was used to enrich the country’s history and for educational purposes respectively, not to mention it garnered the protagonists a great reputation in the public eye.
Then, in films like The Goonies and Romancing the Stone, the heroes used the treasure for personal gain, as seen when Michael Douglas’ Jack returned as a rich man to take Kathleen Turner’s Joan off into the sunset after obtaining an expensive gem. But with Netflix’s Finding ‘Ohana, this cheesy trope is broken, which crafts a perfect ending and gives it a unique position in the genre.