Good night and no luck

Rating: 2/10 (20 February 2014)

George Clooney's latest film tells a long-forgotten story: In the last phase 0of World War II, a group of art experts set up by the U.S. Army went on search for stolen and hidden art in order to rescue them from destruction or being transported to the Soviet Union. Clooney himself plays Frank Stokes, leader of these "Monuments Men", the cast includes the likes of Matt Damon, Caste Blanchett as well as, for the comic relief, Bill Murray and John Goodman. The film is strong when it comes to capturing the look of the times, whether it be occupied Paris or the battle fields of France, Belgium and Germany. This is where its strengths end. Driven by an unbearably obtrusive score, The Monuments Men is pure Hollywood at its very worst. The dialogue is bland and clichéd, the screenplay as if from a construction kit with all the dramatic turns, humorous interludes and romantic anecdotes a blockbuster needs, the photography completely unimaginative, the acting reduced to the purely routine. While the story is one that needs to be told, Clooney chooses the most unsatisfying way of telling it that could be imagined, making the film so slick and uninteresting it should not even do well at the box office.
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