When you pull together a cast that includes George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchett you sort of expect it to be something special, but sadly The Monuments Men just doesn’t quite pull it off. It’s entertaining enough, but there’s a little too much in the way of mixed sentiment, stars and stripes over baking and schmaltz to really make it hand together well enough at the big screen.
The storyline itself is pretty strong in general, as it’s based on the true story of the formation of a division in the United States Army that heads into Europe in the final months of the Second World War in an attempt to save and return the fine art stolen by the retreating German army. However, the movie sort of loses the momentousness of the situation somehow and can’t decide whether it’s a caper movie or an out and out war film.
What we get is a blur of Wes Anderson, Oceans Eleven and Saving Private Ryan and it’s all the worse off for being such a mixed bag. On the other hand, we’re trying to give George Clooney (The Fantastic Mr Fox), who directed the film, and his co-screenplay writer, Grant Heslov, a little benefit of the doubt as their jaunty opening section, hardship of the front line and triumph of victory flow could be seen as an attempt to portray that of the real life characters taken from the non-fiction book by Robert M. Edsel. Although, even with this in mind The Monuments Men just doesn’t quite sit as well as it could have.
The cast, though impressive, is a bit hit and miss throughout. Whether it’s Clooney’s relative newcomer status to the director’s chair, his split roles in front and behind the camera, the lack of clarity in terms of conceptualisation of the delivery or the sheer size of some of the veteran actors, but there’s a bit too much self indulgence to some of the lines. In fact that an indulgent nature to the film as a whole as it seems to throw weight at the story instead of a subtle brush where needed.
Clooney plays Lt. Frank Stokes, the leader of the “Monuments Men” unit. He’s always going to be a fairly strong lead in whatever movie he stars in and that’s just as much the case here. However, he struggles to bring the reality and emotion of the situation to life effectively and it’s a similar story for Matt Damon playing Lt. James Granger, as the pair quip their way through their lines like it was Ocean’s ’45.
John Goodman (Inside Llewyn Davis) plays the equally large character, Sg. Walter Garfield, another of the art experts that are brought together to find and identify the stolen art. He’s a likeable force in the film and has one of the most impressive scenes alongside Jean Dujardin as Lt. Jean Claude Clermont, who worked together in The Artist.
Bill Murray (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is a bit out of place at times, as he seems to have been given pretty much free reign to act as he pleases and works from his Wes Anderson playbook. It’s not that he’s bad as such, it’s just that he doesn’t contribute enough positively to give the film the impact is sort of needed. He’s a part of a few touching moments with Bob Balaban as Pvt. Preston Savitz, but never really breaks an acting sweat if we’re honest, which is tough for us to say, because we’re big Bill Murray fans.
There is a little counteracting on the negatives from both Cate Blanchett (Knight of Cups) and Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), playing resistance affiliate Claire Simone and British art expert and member of the “Monuments Men” unit, Lt. Donald Jeffries. Blanchett is cool and pretty French, giving a semblance of solidity to the plot development as she rolls from one well delivered emotion to the next. This is added to by a very classy performance by Hugh, who is a part of perhaps the most credible scene construction in the movie.
The build up of the movie is perhaps the biggest let down as it simply and quietly sees Clooney recruiting his men without a whiff of explanation, character definition or wrangling. He just sort of turns up and they all give him a silent thumbs up in an odd sort of way. It’s almost like they couldn’t quite work out how to build the narrative around the opening sections of the groups formation, so they just cut it out.
For a war time movie, tension is limited and not portrayed effectively enough throughout the film. The darker moments are quite well portrayed in general, with some good acting from Hugh, Goodman and Dujardin, but with the overall lack of tense build up the appearance of these truer representations of wartime feel a little bit out of sync with the more jaunty style of the film.
There’s a sanitised, produced feel to things too, which doesn’t help in the recreation of Europe during the war. There are lots of little things that contribute to the feeling of being coddled and its a sensation that strips The Monuments Men of its power and impact.
The Monuments Men review: 3/5
