Movie Review: "The Monuments Men"

"The Monuments Men": B-.  Adolph Hitler's war plan did not stop with invasion and occupation .  He also had designs on eradicating all vestiges of the culture from the Fatherland's enemies.  Thus, when the Nazis occupied France and Belgium, the German army made off with billions of dollars of art treasures from churches, museums, galleries and even private collections.  The Allies, under the direction of the US Army, organized a small group of art professors, curators, architects and other experts in the field to identify, locate and retrieve the irreplaceable stolen property.  This small platoon of mostly middle aged men was led by Frank Stokes, played by George Clooney in his usual cool-as-a-cucumber style.  The team was dubbed "the Monuments Men."

The story takes a long time to get out of first gear, yet with such a long setup one would expect that we'd get to know the six individuals better than we do.  Clooney and Matt Damon get the most face time, with Bill Murray and John Goodman, two of the most unlikely soldiers, playing secondary characters.  Damon's character, James Granger, spends more time with a French curator, Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), than he does with his comrades.  Simone has been retained by the Germans as a Girl Friday because she is an expert regarding the works of art in the Parisian museum called the Palme, where the Nazis have set up shop.  Despite her disdain for the Germans, at least she gets to work among the art work she loves.  When the Germans abscond with those pieces, she is outraged.  One of her illogical decisions is that she originally refuses to help Granger in his effort to find and repatriate the stolen art.  This makes no sense, as the Monuments Men are the only hope she has to get the goods back to the Palme.  Some girls just play hard to get, I guess.

The seven Monuments Men individually look upon their mission as a chance to "get into the war," and wear their uniforms proudly.  Due to their ages, they surely would not otherwise find themselves anywhere near the battle fields. There is some humorous banter going back and forth.  Granger is constantly ridiculed, both by his colleagues and by Simone, for his terrible French language skills. Also, when the French soldier points out to the Englishman that the reason the Luftwaffe bombed London but not Paris is because London's museums did not contain any masterpieces worth protecting, that drew a laugh from the audience.

Once the mission's foundation is finally established and the platoon has a detailed strategy, the story does pick up a little, although it plateaus at the level of "interesting," never reaching what I'd call "excitement."  That is not a good thing for a war movie.

The script throws logistical challenges to the wind.  Once the men figure out that the confiscated art is spread all over western Germany, they manage to get from point to point so quickly one would think they used helicopters instead of jeeps and trucks.  They always seem to have an empty fleet of trucks at their disposal in case they run across some paintings they need to transport.  Time is of the essence, because even though the Germans are aware of the fact that their surrender to the Allied Forces is imminent, they still might destroy the art before the Monuments Men can save it. As if that weren't enough pressure put upon the platoon, the Russians are heading their way from the eastern front, and those bad boys surely have designs on the art treasures too.

I remember George Clooney making the rounds of the late night talk shows before New Years, promoting this movie. Here it is five months later and The Monuments Men is still hanging around in the theaters.  One theory of mine is that there are a lot of moviegoers who are more attracted by sheer star power than the story.  It is a decent movie but with too many holes.  One example is the scene in which Granger finds himself inside a cave standing on top of a land mine.  It could be a dud, but then again he could blow himself up by stepping off if it's not a dud.  His buddies come in to investigate.  After attempting to stack some bricks as a counterweight, they decide to stand nearby to watch Granger make his move.  Does anyone actually think the mine will explode, killing them all?