As if Adolf Hitler and his Nazi shenanigans
weren't bad enough, turns out the man was also an art
thief. As most know, Hitler was an art student and had
he been a better art student there is no telling what the
world would look like right now, but he was not a good art
student, though he apparently never lost his love of
art. So as Hitler and the German forces were invading
Europe, in addition to the already lengthy laundry list of
atrocities the Nazi's were committing, they were also stealing
rare and precious art works that I'm guessing were going to
presented in the Great Hitler Met had Germany won the
war. If they don't win war then these pieces will be
destroyed, and Professor Frank Stokes (George Clooney) cannot
allow that to happen. 'The Monuments Men' is the story
of a ragtag group of scholars, dressed like soldiers, who will
get this art back to its rightful owners. Or the United
States. I was thinking this was going to be 'Oceans'
meets 'The Inglorious Basterds' or something along those
lines. It wasn't that. Not even a little bit.
First thing Dr. Stokes needs to do is get his team
together. Every member has a particular skill, though
I'm not quite sure if they ever used these particular skills
in this movie. 'Development of Character' didn't seem to
be a primary concern for director Clooney in this movie.
Regardless, there's Dr. James Granger (Matt Damon) who paints
ceilings and whatnot, Richard Campbell (Bill Murray)… don't
know what he does… Walter Garfield (John Goodman) who is a
sculptor, Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban) who I believe is a
stage director, Englishman Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville)
who talks to women in bars, and Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont
(Jean Dujardin) who flies planes? Maybe?
Anyway, it's time for a little basic training, some bromance
bonding and then it's off to Europe to save some artwork.
Not so fast my friends because the cultureless armed forces
could care less about saving works of art and just wants to
bomb the heck out of everything and end this war. If
some lousy paintings get
destroyed in the process, so be it. Dr.
Stokes has clearly stated that the destruction of art and
culture almost equates to the removal of one's existence, and
he is right about this as this was almost the exact blueprint
for American slavery, but the powers that be could care less,
thus Dr. Stokes and his team are on their own in making this
happen.
Everybody breaks off into teams, except for Matt Damon's
character who goes to France to hook up with Claire Simone
(Cate Blanchette), a clerk who helped some chief Nazi catalog
some of the stolen art. Kind of. I think this
character was supposed to be French in this movie. As
great an actress as Cate Blanchette is, judging by the accent
she was using I think I'd have gone with someone who was
actually French to play that role. Dujardin must've
known somebody?
It will be a perilous mission for our Monuments Men and not
all of them will survive the day, but history tells us that
for the most part, they will succeed. Even if this film,
for the most part, does not.
I think I can pinpoint pretty easily why George Clooney's 'The
Monuments Men' didn't work for me. As we mentioned
earlier, there were scenes where a couple of our heroes did
not make it, and despite the grand music, dour narration and
charming actors giving their best death scenes… these deaths
meant almost nothing. On the other hand there's a scene
where an evil Nazi… like there's any other kind of Nazi… takes
a blowtorch to some classics. That scene had an
effect. Way more effect than actual characters
dying. This raises an interesting question in regards to
this movie, or any kind of mission based movie. What's
more important… the mission or the men in the mission?
Director Clooney made the decision to make the mission the
focal point of his film, not the men in the mission, and while
I appreciate art as much as the next guy, and I also
understand that fine art is timeless while people are finite,
I am still a firm believer in character first. If I care
about the characters, then I'll subsequently care about their
mission, no matter what it is. Not necessarily vice
versa. Perhaps because there were too many characters,
all spread out across Europe no less, with no one character
being a central 'star' so to speak, not even Clooney or Damon,
it was difficult to get to know these characters and
understand these characters and root for these characters
outside of the preprogrammed thought that we all hate Nazis.
It is a wonderful cast that Clooney had to work with, no
doubt, and just taking a look at the sets, production and
grand style in which these scenes are shot, we already know
that George Clooney is a highly skilled film
director. Thus I have to work on the assumption
that he made this as a conscious decision to make the focus of
the 'Monuments Men' the saving of the art and not necessarily
a story about the journey of the men saving the
art.
I wouldn't call 'The Monuments Men' a failure by any stretch
as there is far too much talent involved and the movie does a
lot of things very, very well, it just didn't move me in the
way I had hoped.
