The Monuments Men is George Clooney’s attempt at directing an adaptation of a true historical book of the same name by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. Though the movie has decent comedy scenes and decent drama, both are meshed together in a haphazard manner, making the final product fall short of what it could’ve been.
On its face the story seems to have a lot going for it. The movie is about a group of curators and art directors who go through basic training to do a mission for the president: get precious art back from the Nazis during World War II. The film ultimately puts what could be a wonderful heist story on the back burner. Barely even discussing how the men find the works they try to save.
The movie itself turns into a lot of anecdotal scenes that turn the general mood of the film into a roller coaster. For example Bill Murray’s character, Sgt. Campbell, is introduced in an amazing scene, and then the movie randomly cuts to a dying soldier who is barely given any screen time. Clooney may have wanted to juxtapose the drama to the strong performance in Campbell’s introduction, but the lack of knowledge about the random soldier takes away from the drama of his death.
And much like the situation described above, the rest of the movie jumps from a light hearted and intriguing comedy mystery mash up to a harsh reality of war drama. It feels almost like Clooney had a much bigger idea for the movie but tries too hard, making the film as a whole come across as unfinished and strange.
In a movie such as this it would seem likely for there to be a large concentration on each of the characters and their experiences with art and with basic training and their lives. They are civilians who are trained into the army and expected to steal art from behind enemy lines, or even at the front lines of battle.
However, Clooney seems to have thrown this idea away for the overarching attempt at a deep war movie. The movie’s characters are terribly undeveloped and some of the major ones, such as Matt Damon’s and even Clooney’s, have their names said so little that the audience almost forgets who they are.
With Damon’s character, this issue is made all the worse by incorporating random scenes with him and his old farmer friend/contact. These scenes do little, if nothing, to move the story forward and lack any real drama. The scenes beg the question: Why not emphasize more about the team or finding art? It seemed like it would be the emphasis in the first place.
Without a good fleshing out of the characters, what Clooney and the other producers put on the line for these pieces of art could easily be ignored. However, the movie decides to remind audiences what the stakes of these missions are over and over again with very little subtlety. It would have been much better for the movie and character development if the characters’ feelings and thoughts showed the stakes, rather than Clooney’s character out right saying it several times.
Though the film can feel jarring and unfinished, some of the performances by the all-star crew stand out. Specifically Cate Blanchett’s character (Claire Simone) is incredibly well acted and developed. Oftentimes it feels like a movie about Blanchett’s character would have been better put together and shown more depth than the one about the monument’s men team.
