Out today, George Clooney’s The Monuments Men tells a little known story about a treasure hunt in the last year of World War II.
The Monuments Men (George Clooney, Matt Damon, Kate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin) – Some people, like my son, think that it is time to quit doing World War II movies. After all, it has been over for 68 years. The Monuments Men gives us interesting insight into a rarely told story about a small group of art experts and architects who are charged with finding and saving the art of Europe that the Nazis have stolen.
George Clooney directs, writes and stars in this fascinating, if thin, story of an unlikely band of soldiers who risk their lives to save the culture of the world. The Monuments Men isn’t at all brutal; it is the opposite of Lone Survivor. Sometimes light but always reverential to the atrocities of WWII, the film covers the war from shortly after D-Day until the Nazi surrender. Featuring a wonderful and quirky soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat, Monuments Men is well paced. Clooney makes sure we focus on the commitment of the men, all of whom want to find a way to assist the war effort despite their advanced age.
The best performance belongs to Kate Blanchett, a French patriot who served as the secretary to the Nazi officer overseeing the distribution of the vast art collection in Paris. Her Claire Simone doesn’t trust the Americans’ motives either. She figures they want to steal the art, too. She is enlisted by James Granger (Matt Damon), an art restorer, to assist the Americans by sharing what she knows of the location of the art.
Clooney and Damon have done so many movies together that their banter and timing are effortless. Clooney and Blanchett teamed up in Clooney’s WWII film noir The Good German. Damon and she worked together in The Talented Mr. Ripley (with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law). To that cast, Clooney added the eclectic Bill Murray, the enigmatic Bob Balaban, and the intriguing Jean Dujardin. Ensemble magic ensues.
The Monuments Men may not be the best WWII movie you have seen but it serves as part history lesson and part treasure hunt with a wonderful cast and great music.