The Monuments Men: Artists Vs Nazis

I wanted to watch The Monuments Men ever since the first trailer came out in August. The release date kept getting pushed, and my anticipation kept building until finally, last weekend, I sat down in the theater, all agog. And my excitement gradually deflated until I left the theater saying, "Well, that wasn't great."

Based on the book of the same name by Robert Edsel, The Monuments Men tells the amazing true story of a World War II Allied unit, comprised of art historians and museum curators, whose job was to head into the front lines and tell the soldiers what they could and couldn't bomb in order to preserve important works of art and architecture. These men were generally received with derision by commanders who weren't about to compromise any missions to preserve something they deemed as insignificant as art. But as the movie restates multiple times, a civilization is defined by the accumulation of years of art and accomplishments. Hitler wanted to destroy any unacceptable art, burning multiple Piccasos and Dalis, and he stole other priceless works from private collections in Paris to fill a Fuhrer Museum that he intended to build in Germany. The Monuments Men were tasked with retrieving that stolen art, and ensuring that centuries of European civilization wouldn't be swept away by one man.

We can all agree this is a fantastic story, filled with excitement, nobility of purpose, genuinely heroic heroes and dastardly villains. The trouble is that the movie cannot figure out if this movie is a comedy or a drama, and by trying to be both, it turns into an insipid affair that achieves neither. George Clooney (who stars in the film apart from also directing, producing and co-writing with Grant Heslov) has amassed an epic cast of actors. Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville, and Jean Dujardin make up the Monuments Men squad, while Cate Blanchett plays Claire Simone, a Frenchwoman who worked under the noses of the Germans during the Paris occupation and kept intricate notes about all the artwork they had stolen and where it was being taken. The first ten minutes of this film set up the premise, and features a montage straight out of Ocean's Eleven as Lt. Frank Stokes (Clooney) is given permission by the President to assemble his team. As he travels to disparate places to gather his motley crew, I half expected some funky Vegas music to play in the background.

The rest of the movie proceeds like a series of sketches. The men partner up and travel to different front lines so we get snatches of what each team is up to, some of which is funny, some of which is tragic, all of which is fairly rambling. Towards the end, the team re-assembles and further hi-jinx ensue. But at the same time, we get Clooney's patriotic voice-over, explaining the importance of what is going on, how these men would risk their lives for a piece of art, how evil the Nazis are (in case you didn't know that already), and rah, rah, America. Even the score soars jingoistically with campy war marches, and you simply can't figure out if you're supposed to feel amused, horrified, uplifted, or saddened. It's a problem I noticed even in the trailers for this film - they either went all out promoting it as a comedy, or all out promoting it as a serious war film. The actual product is a tonal mess, which is apparently the reason its release was pushed so many times.

The Monuments Men has all the right ingredients but they've been thrown together in an uneven script that dooms the entire enterprise. This is by no means the worst movie I've seen, but it is packed with unrealized potential. There was a lot of incredible acting talent and a fascinating story to tell here, but instead, it was distilled down to a two-hour heist movie about middle-aged artists outsmarting Nazis. I cannot claim to know how the tonal problems could have been fixed, but I do know that this attempt did not work.