An understated, respectful adventure of war's hidden cost

Rating: Null/10 (8 February 2014)

"Monuments Men" tries and mostly succeeds to tread a line that draws a cautionary balance between the epic loss of human life during World War II and the collateral loss and outright theft of priceless, historical artworks by the defeated Nazi's through the war's end. "Men" depicts the real-life mission of a group of art specialists to find and retrieve these stolen pieces.
"Men" is a war tale told outside the confines of war in what may be a too-subtle attempt to draw out the inherent irony of abstracting war in art's context. "Men" depicts the trailing end of World War II only in that abstract sense, and to its own detriment arguably makes the process of finding the secreted artworks easier than it could possibly have been in reality.
There is an unevenness in "Monuments Men" that only marginally detracts from its overall quality. When Frank Stokes (George Clooney) meets up with Joseph Granger (Matt Damon) early in the planning stages of their art retrieval task, its hard not to expect at least one solid in-joke from their team-up in the famed "Oceans" film series - yet none comes. "Men" succeeds, however, in its own awareness of the danger and moral propriety in sending military men on a mission to retrieve artworks in the midst of the emerging reality of Nazi genocide.
"Men" is a good, if flawed, film, telling a difficult tale that had to be harder to accomplish in reality than was depicted on screen. Its flaws are in uneven pacing, mismatched musical support, and a too-simple story; yet even amid these flaws, it conveys a valid story about still more heartbreaking loss in the midst of war. IT's worth your consideration.