by Joseph Rossi
A big budget. A cast of Hollywood’s best actors. A director with a proven track record. How the heck could The Monuments Men be such a colossal misfire? I remember way back in December when the film got bumped to a February release date. I wondered why would any studio looking for money and potential Oscar gold move such a prestige picture to the studio system’s dead zone? Now I know why.
This is a film with a great idea: a group of art historians, architects and sculptors are sent to Europe at the tail end of WW2 to locate classic pieces of art taken by the Nazis and try and return them to their respected owners. On paper any one with half a brain would want to make this movie. When I heard George Clooney wanted to direct and star in it along a cast that included Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett, I was enthusiastic. I am a fan of John Frankenheimer and his WW2 war flick, The Train, starring Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. It borders on the same concept of Clooney’s film and I hoped that it would offer the same tension and exhilaration. The Monuments Men is at many times a total slog to sit through. It moves at a snails pace. It splits up this group of art enthusiasts as they wander through Europe, from one situation to the next, from one comical ordeal to another emotional one. Since we are following a group that are doing different things at different points in the final year of the war, the film feels disjointed, like a film full of vignettes rather then a full on narrative feature.
The cast does good work. Actually it’s safe work. Everyone seems enthusiastic to work with Clooney, who in turn stars as the squads leader Frank Stokes. There are no real chances taken here. Cate Blanchette does the best work in the film as a curator working under the Nazi regime; she disappears into her characters Belgian skin flawlessly. The rest of the cast does what they usually are cast to do. Clooney is the noble leader. Damon plays the stoic, polite, good guy with a clear conscience. Goodman, Murray, Balaban are cast as the comic relief. Not a stretch for this crew. If they would have focused on one or two characters instead of following all of them and their respective narratives, they would have had a tighter and more coherent and emotional film. I am disappointed. Wanted this one to work.
