The Monuments Men (2014)

When I first saw the trailer for The Monuments Men, I was cautiously optimistic. It seemed fun at the time; a lighthearted World War II film that tells of a chapter in the history of the war that I wasn't familiar with. And to top it off, George Clooney, one of my favorite male actors, was in one of the starring roles with a cast of veteran actors. However, the actual film was something of a disappointment, partly because it is not nearly as humorous as the trailer suggested. Based on a true story, it tells the story of a group of artists, art experts and other creative workers who were sent into different parts of Nazi-occupied Europe to recover famous works of art seized by the Reich during the war.

Taking such a dark age of our history as World War II, or any major war for that matter, and adding a sense of comedy to it is a very difficult thing to do well. I can only think of a handful of works of fiction that managed to take a a story set in a major conflict and make it funny. The first one that leaps to my mind is Kelly's Heroes, which very skillfully balances humor with genuinely exciting combat action. However, The Monuments Men, in spite of its fair intentions and good heart, fails to make itself stand out as a war movie, a comedy or even a combination of both. Roughly half of the movie consists of moments meant to be humorous but rarely amuse, such as the lead characters, many of whom are middle-aged men, having basic combat training, or when John Goodman and Jean Dujardin gab during a firefight. The other half is made up of dramatic scenes generic enough to be found in almost any war movie, like Clooney's character interrogating a German officer or Blanchett's character being on the opposite end of a similar situation, almost none of which create a lot of tension or suspense. To make matters worse, the narrative is very inconsistent and mostly becomes a loosely-threaded quilt of sketches, half of which could have been moved around a bit without having any impact on the plot. When meshed together, these scenes produce an overall dull plot that neither thrills nor amuses.

The other major issue with The Monuments Men is its cast. Sure, it has a lot of veterans of the big screen on it, such as George Clooney and Matt Damon, as well as some less brightly shining stars such as Bill Murray and Bob Balaban (whom I will always remember for his role in Jurassic Park 2). The problem with assembling such a major cast is that it has simply become spread far too thin; almost none of the characters, except maybe Cate Blanchett's, stand out in any particular way, hardly any of them is given a big enough role in the story to be memorable and none of the actors is ever used to his/her fullest potential. It might have worked if the group were downsized and the narrative allowed to focus on a few of them; basically, the plot could have been streamlined by making Clooney, Damon and Blanchett the lead roles and using the others in a more supporting capacity.

Verdict: 2/5

Despite an interesting premise, Monuments Men fails on account of its choppy narrative and poorly used cast