The Monuments Men [M]

It’s the final years of the Second World War and Hitler has been ruthlessly invading cities and stealing all the priceless artwork so as to house it in his own museum. A group of American soldiers create a team with the sole purpose of recovering the stolen art and returning it home. But along the way there will be great challenges, great sacrifices and the question must be asked: is a piece of art worth a man’s life? 

It has to now be said that the people who put together the theatrical trailers and teaser trailers really do deserve a round of applause and some recognition. After seeing the trailer for this movie countless times, I was really keen to check out the film. The ad made the film look as though it was going to be this wonderfully funny and cultural journey with lovable characters and a quick-witted script. I don’t wish to say that I received nothing of the sort because that would be a bit harsh, but at the end of this movie I did find myself a little disappointed. 

It’s the final years of the Second World War and Hitler has been ruthlessly invading cities and stealing all the priceless artwork so as to house it in his own museum. A group of American soldiers create a team with the sole purpose of recovering the stolen art and returning it home. But along the way there will be great challenges, great sacrifices and the question must be asked: is a piece of art worth a man’s life? 

I don’t think this movie quite knew what it wanted to be. Literally everything about this was done in a haphazard and sort of disheartened formulaic type of way and as a result, we have this movie that really struggles to get its messages across about art, life, culture, and history. The script isn’t written particularly well. It’s very disjointed and doesn’t really flow at all. Quite a lot happens over a long period of time and I found it quite hard to keep on track with everything as well as not being able to distinguish a sense of time having elapsed. 

The other thing that I think was the major crime in this movie was the fact that you had this collection of characters that you could easily come to love and root for, but they’re not allowed to develop. There are no bonding scenes, indeed no long bouts where we get to know the characters at all and it’s a real shame because some of these characters like that of Bill Murray, John Goodman, and Jean Dujardin had the potential to be really loveable. The drama is injected in large portions of wordy dialogue and even the performances strove to be something special. 

Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Huge Bonneville, Dimitri Leonidas, and Bob Balaban, The Monuments Men is an interesting story and features a group of fine actors and potentially loveable and funny characters, but the way in which it was written just didn’t really allow for story-audience and character-audience relations to flourish. Filled with action, art, drama, explosions, and the odd smattering of comedy and cute banter, I wouldn’t say that it’s a bad film at all. I’m just saying it might be fair to say that George Clooney has done cleverer things in the past.