Starring, directed, co-produced and co-written by George Clooney, the movie follows a posse of art specialists turned soldiers as they try to save the Western world’s most prized paintings, sculptures and monuments from Nazi confiscation and destruction. Released Feb. 7, the movie is based on the true story told in Robert M. Edsel’s book of the same name.
In a low-lit conference room, Frank Stokes (Clooney), a member of the Navy and a Harvard art expert, persuades the U.S. president that a special mission is needed to save the treasures of Picasso, Michelangelo and the like from the Nazis. Clooney then sets out to muster the right combination of curators, architects and others for this task, all to the tune of a comfortably familiar battle-ready march, courtesy of composer Alexandre Desplat.
Comedic relief instills “The Monuments Men” with a bit of fun. Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), a prominent benefactor of ballet, is the wisecracking older recruit with a big heart and an even bigger outfit. He’s topped with a helmet that droops over his small head. Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) is his heftier counterpart.
One especially humorous scene with Savitz is when he happens upon a young, timid soldier. The soldier was armed with a gun but didn’t seem to want to cause any trouble. Another monuments man joins the two, and they unofficially call a truce over a few cigarettes. Through France, Belgium and Germany, the lightheartedness stays with the monuments men until the end.
From comedy, the movie seamlessly transitions to moments of espionage (as a monument man sneaks through a darkened French city to rescue a piece of art from under the Nazis’ fingertips) to being what it really is ¬– a war movie. Despite the adventure, the movie doesn’t let the viewer forget either the seriousness of the war these unusual soldiers are fighting or the seriousness of their mission.
It’s a mission set on stopping Hitler from completing his own mission to control everything himself or destroy it as his Nero Decree commands. As Stokes says, “He wanted everything,” and the monuments men are to keep this from happening. Stokes calls his men soldiers: they both experience and succumb to all the pain and loss familiar to the everyday GI.
And though Allied commanders throughout Europe don’t always believe in the team’s mission, the men themselves do. As one lies in a French church dying from a gunshot, he professes that art belongs to all, not only one.
The war’s consequences are also seen through the eyes of Europeans cast into the war for no reason besides where they happen to call home. Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) is a Parisian curator forced to aid the Nazi occupiers. In another scene, two of the monuments men engage in a brief shootout with whom they discover is a no-more-than-8-year-old, wide-eyed French boy.
The movie doesn’t forget the Holocaust, either. Jewish art collections are targeted and confiscated, and the men discover a barrel of gold – golden teeth in particular. Viewers aren’t left to wonder where such copious amounts came from.
Despite the adventure and seriousness of “The Monuments Men,” the endless art-chasing can be monotonous. The time between major plot points is not necessarily short, either. This is especially noticeable in scenes with James Granger (Matt Damon) as he spends most of the 118 minutes trying to convince Simone to help his team.
Even so, the charm of the seven culture-saving heroes and the importance of their mission will keep most viewers watching until the last painting is saved.
