Clooney's Message about the Value of Art and Life

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2014)

Is a work of art, even one as irreplaceable as the Ghent Altarpiece or a Michelangelo Madonna, worth a man's life? Especially today, when extortionate museum admission charges reserve art for the privileged few. George Clooney clearly believes the answer is "yes," and he hammers the message home as producer, writer, director, and star of his preachy film "The Monuments Men." Those dastardly Nazis strike again and loot Europe's museums and private collections with the intention of establishing a gigantic Fuehrer Museum in Germany. The stolen art works are shipped to the Fatherland, where they are hidden from advancing Allied forces, and Clooney and his team are assigned to retrieve and return the masterpieces.
With slick production values, the movie resembles a big-budget war movie from the 1960's and has a simplistic old-fashioned quality. The star-studded cast is also a throwback to earlier war films, although the A-list team is largely underused and under-challenged. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman play stock characters, while the charming Oscar winner Jean Dujardin is wasted in a small part. Only Cate Blanchett stands out as a member of the French resistance who has critical information about the missing art; Blanchett alone immerses herself in character, although her rapid attitude shift towards Damon may provoke whiplash in some.
Clooney has borrowed liberally from other war films, and references to "The Battle of the Bulge" and "The Bridge at Remagen" only remind viewers of even more. John Frankenheimer's "The Train" visually posed the same life vs art question, but Frankenheimer wisely left viewers to ponder the answer for themselves; Clooney does not trust his audience, but rather answers the question for them several times over. Clooney's use of the melancholy "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" pales in comparison to the unforgettable images that accompanied that song in John Foreman's grim and gritty film, "The Victors." Even the Spielbergian sentiment of the final scene evokes "Saving Private Ryan." Clooney's team faces hostility from their own troops, who are intent on victory, despite the cost to cultural treasures. Time also pressures them as the Russians move into German territory where the stolen works have been hidden; those nasty Russians intend to keep the purloined art for their own museums as war reparations. However, despite the pressures, the often naive team make time to pat each other on the back and smile smugly, hang American flags to taunt adversaries, stand in awe like schoolboys on a museum outing, and seemingly wander off sightseeing in enemy-held territory. While Clooney does a competent job under all four of his caps, "The Monuments Men" is a message picture wrapped in glossy trimmings. The film is not bad and retains viewer attention, but some may resent the preachings of a wealthy handsome Hollywood star and prefer to make up their own minds about the value of art vs human life.