Clooney brings the old time war movie back to the big screen

Rating: 7/10 (1 December 2015)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
As World War 2 draws to a close, and the allied forces draw in on Germany, Major Huey Lewis (George Clooney) brings his own daring mission to the forefront: retrieving stolen artworks that the Nazis have pilfered by Jewish artists, to either be destroyed or usurped by Hitler and placed in his planned Fuhrer Museum. He assembles a ragtag squadron from different units (and even different armies) and they are plunged into a desperate race against time to save the works before it's too late.
The terrible antics of ISIS have been in the news lately, with their various atrocities around the world, but mention was given to the ancient monuments they smashed to pieces in the Middle Eastern countries they've invaded, representing centuries of culture. It's a tactic they've obviously taken on from fanatics of time gone past, not simply wanting to eradicate a whole race of people, but also all the items of value that their culture produced, so that they're dead in people's memories, as well as physically. George Clooney's full bodied, all star homage to gung ho, cavalier war films of times gone past, takes the traditional war film, and applies it to a different type of story.
An all star cast, made up of mostly older heads, with Matt Damon probably being the youngest, adds to the old fashioned feel of it all, with John Goodman before he lost so much weight, and Bill Murray, who can wonderfully channel the same expression to convey feelings of laughter and feelings of sadness. Adding to the Sunday afternoon feel of it all is a lack of depiction in the brutal, blood drenched reality of war, just ambling along and telling the story the way it would have in the 40s and 50s. But it is Clooney's show all the way, his affection for the type of film he's copying the style of beautifully evident.
It's all wrapped up quite wonderfully too, unlike a lot of war films at under the two hour mark, making for a much more condensed affair. I'm not sure why it's attracted as much scorn as it has. All in all, it's a pretty forgettable experience, with nothing to really make it stand out from other films of it's type, other than being about a mission to save paintings than people. In that sense at least, it's daring and ambitious, and while the results are pretty hit and miss, it's no more hit than miss. ***