Film Review: The Monuments Men

Director: George Clooney

Released just over a month ago, The Monuments Men disappeared from the public-eye amongst all the Oscar buzz that other films received. A film released with an impressive ensemble cast was clearly expected to challenge for some honours fell flat and wasn't even in the conversation. This was Clooney's fifth feature film in the directing chair and he's proving to be a rather hit or miss film-maker. His second film Leatherheads suffering similarly poor reviews but films like Good Night and Good Luck and The Ides of March being much more popular.

Frank Stokes (Clooney) convinces the US president to setup a task force whose sole job is to save artistic treasures during the second world war, stopping them from being destroyed by bombing or stolen by the Nazis. He entlists six other men to help him Granger (Matt Damon), Campbell (Bill Murray), Garfield (John Goodman), Clermont (Jean Dujardin), Savitz (Bob Balaban) and Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville). They also try to garner the help of Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett) who is a curator in Paris who fights to stop the Nazi's from stealing precious artwork.

Five of the Seven Monuments Men

Right from the beginning you struggle with the script, the film is very much a light hearted war film with quite a few jokes and efforts at sharp dialogue interspersed throughout. Unfortunately the whole thing falls flat as its neither clever not that funny, a joke between Damon and a young American/German driver about being from North Jersey being excruciatingly painful in the opening few minutes. If you don't have a good script then you have nothing, but even then the acting comes across more as a group of esteemed actors on a jolly more than anything else.

Elsewhere the story itself just wasn't that engaging with its hugely nostalgic feel, the characters all struggle in their fight for screen time which means you end up with seven characters you aren't interested in rather than three or four that you do. Whilst many European critics called it a "Hollywood propaganda film" for its lack of historical accuracy, the group tasked with saving these monuments was actually setup before the Americans even joined the war which unfortunately means this film can't blame its dull narrative on it being factually accurate.

0.5/4 Dull and poorly scripted but Hollywood is consistent in trying to distort history.