The Monuments Men is George Clooney’s fifth go-round directing himself to be handsome and charming, proving for the fifth time that he is the least qualified man for the job. (See the Coen brothers, Soderbergh, et al.)
This film tells the embellished true story of the quest to reclaim Europe’s stolen art from the Nazis during WWII by assembling a crew of museum curators, architects and art historians in what is basically advertised as Ocean’s 1944. What’s onscreen instead is a mishmash of scenes hovering around a central premise punctuated by misplaced jokes and maudlin sentimentalism, all generously heaped with a layer of rosy, warm nostalgia for a time that could arguably be called the darkest in the twentieth century.
Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett
What pushes this film beyond just another ho-hum flick to true disappointment status, however, is the level of underutilized talent involved. John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Clooney himself, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett all turn in serviceable performances playing slight variations on themselves save for Blanchett, who is the most convincing as a French art curator-turned-spy. Likely bolstered by the presence of such talent, the lesser-known faces provide the more memorable characters (though no less one-dimensional). Jean Dujardin, Dimitri Leonidas and Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville all outshine their more established counterparts, but the overabundance of characters and ever-changing locales wind up giving short shrift to all involved.
This overabundance could be due to Clooney’s and co-writer Grant Heslov’s refusal to trim any big players and big moments out of respect for the book on which the film was based. Replete with tell-don’t-show voiceover narration, The Monuments Men is less a cohesive story than a mission statement on the Importance of Art, and a love letter to those involved in saving so much of it from failed art student Adolf Hitler, who this film might have you believe started the Holocaust as a cover for his true agenda of amassing the world’s great art for his own private collection. The kid-gloved handling of the other atrocities of the Holocaust could have made for a Raiders of the Lost Art-styled romp, but Clooney’s authorial heavy-handedness detracts from any potential fun and the overall importance of his message.
I may be coming off as glib, but so too, however unintentionally, does The Monuments Men.
