Review #751: 'The Monuments Men' (2014)

It's rather difficult to spot a George Clooney-directed movie. He's riffed on the Coen Brothers, Billy Wilder and Alan J. Pakula, without ever settling on a style of his own. Of course, there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from masters of their craft, but there's something undeniably empty about Clooney's output (the excellent Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) excluded). His latest, a light-hearted, men-on-a-mission World War II romp, is quite possibly his worst yet. It wants to be a war movie of old - a breezy, patriotic adventure best enjoyed on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but ends up being awkward, saddled with an awful script penned by Clooney himself and frequent collaborator Grant Heslov.

After successfully convincing the U.S. President to assist in maintaining the cultural heritages of the countries ravaged the war, Frank Stokes (Clooney) is given the go-ahead to round up a crack team and enter Europe to save the art looted by the Nazis. Stokes and his friend James Granger (Matt Damon) quickly gather the team - which consists of Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville), Walter Garfield (John Goodman), Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) and Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban). Granger heads to occupied France and hooks up with spy Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett), who believes the team are out to steal the art for themselves, while the rest of the group split up with various objectives.

Artistic licence has obviously been taken here, and there is no problem with that for the sake of both entertainment, and bringing the valiant efforts of those involved in the real Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, to people's attention. The undeniable greed of the Nazis (they hoped to open the Fuhrer Museum to home their loot) and the merciless destruction of any work produced by Jews, shouldn't be hard to convey to an audience. Yet, somehow Clooney struggles to make us care. Perhaps it's the cheery casualness of it all, or the fact that the film is nothing more than a few scenes lacking context where the cast mess around without letting us in on the joke.

This is Clooney as Steven Soderbergh, clearly channelling his experiences on Ocean's Eleven (2001), but lacking the ability to control an ensemble or pen a script that helps establish each character. On paper, the cast is of the highest quality, but in the film, they are all basically the same person. Everyone is 'the funny guy', yet no-one is funny. Without any feeling of a consistent threat throughout the film, it's hard to care, so Clooney lumps in an 'I think I've stepped on a mine' scene near the climax which cries of desperation. If this had been made 50 years ago with, say, Henry Fonda, this would probably be a classic. But this is 2014, and The Monuments Men is one of the biggest disappointments of recent years.


Directed by: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie