Art has been a part of human culture since the dawn of man. People like me spend their lives writing about it, protecting it and debating it because it tells us about ourselves, defines our history, makes us think, moves us to act, provides escapism and many more things that can fill a term paper. And we should preserve it at all costs because Hitler is bad and go America.
George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” champions art and the soldiers who helped to salvage it from the Nazis during World War II, but it’s a muddled war film rather than a stirring piece of art full of ideas and meaning itself. It’s about the lofty Idea of art, only important on the motivation of preventing Hitler from making someone else’s culture his own.
“Art is to be held up and admired, just like these men,” Clooney says. And the extent to which Clooney feels art should simply be placed on a pedestal or hung on a wall like the way America treats its military reflects how pretty and patriotic, yet empty “The Monuments Men” feels. It has echoes of being an amusing buddy caper complete with manufactured camaraderie and a role call of movie stars called into action one by one, not unlike Clooney’s “Ocean’s Eleven.” But it also wants to be a grave war drama and paints the melodramatic set pieces and themes of war, justice and serving your country with a broad brush.
Clooney stars as Lieutenant Frank Stokes, an art professor tasked by President Roosevelt to identify priceless works of European art stolen by the Nazis and bring them to safety. Rounding out Clooney’s team are Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville, each of them good for a monologue or a playful jab at a fellow soldier.
But the dialogue feels lazy, with these movie stars bumbling around war zones as Clooney and Grant Heslov try to figure out whether their movie is a comedy or drama. At one point an unseen sniper pins down Goodman and Dujardin and the moment reflects “Saving Private Ryan.” But the two cower behind cover and exchange hammy glances of, “No you go first,” before discovering the shooter is actually a child.
Clooney needs to invest more time into the development of his characters and his ideas or he’ll end up with scenes as cloyingly manufactured as one in which medics mend dying, wounded soldiers as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” plays soothingly in the background.
He’ll realize that Damon’s portion is almost unnecessary and that Clooney never digs deep into debating the more nuanced aspects of art and whether it is essential amid the spoils of war.
“The Monuments Men” is pretty and feels important but rests on a pretty thin canvas.
2 ½ stars
The ensemble made this somewhat more pleasant than it should have been. The only problem is that everything feels so rushed and ill-thought, that we never get a whole understanding as to why these pieces of art are so important, and why they’re worth saving. We just see it happen, and it’s not all that convincing to begin with. Good review.