The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men, George Clooney's latest directorial and acting effort, hopes to capture the drama and urgency of Saving Private Ryan as a group of men unsuited for action in World War II are recruited to save precious works of art and sculpture from Nazi depredations. George Clooney assembled an offbeat cast including himself, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman, John Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville for what was presented as mostly humor in previews but is actually an uneasy drama/comedy amalgam that can't quite reconcile either comfortably to create anything convincing or memorable. One moment the film is Kelly's Heroes, the next Saving Private Ryan, and the very next Inglorious Basterds but doesn't appropriate what is funny or thrilling about them. The sanctimonious sentiments Clooney utters about the importance of art rings false and we never get a sense of how the conscripted feel about art or risking peril to save the myriad works; they are merely bodies Clooney populates the screen with. It seems only Blanchett emerges a fully-realized character as the reluctant factotum to a Nazi officer in Paris who risks her life to preserve a cache of art from all armies involved. We also don't come away with a sense of why art is vital to humanity or war's destructive toll on creative expression; only that the film is a missed opportunity.