Based on the true story focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon to execute an impossible mission: retrieve the art trapped behind enemy lines,

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2015)

In 1943 during World War II, the Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers in Italy , but there took place the greatest art heist in history . However, Frank Stokes (George Clooney) persuades the American President Roosevelt that victory will have little meaning if the artistic treasures of Western civilization are lost in the fighting. Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the "Monuments Men", comprising seven museum directors, curators, and art historians to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art to return it to its rightful owners . But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements and especially to rescue Altarpiece of Gante and Virgin sculpture by Michael Angel . As an unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. They are the followings : Bill Murray as Richard Campbell , John Goodman as Walter Garfield , Jean Dujardin as Jean Clermont , Hugh Bonneville as Donald Jeffries , Bob Balaban .as Preston , Dimitri Leonidas and Matt Damon (Daniel Craig was cast in a role but ultimately he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Matt Damon replaced him).
The Monuments Men is a 2014 American-German war-comedy-drama war film directed by George Clooney, written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov, and with all-star cast such as Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. Loosely based on the non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel. This action drama follows an Allied group, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, tasked with finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction by Hitler during World War II . Intentions are noble and its cast is impressive, but neither can compensate for The Monuments Men results to be stiffly nostalgic and curiously slack narrative . The picture is pretty well , though the sense that the film is episodic and poorly structured . Principal photography by Phedon Papamichael began at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany, in the Berlin-Brandenburg region , being filmed on location Bad Grund, Lower Saxony , Osterwieck, Saxony-Anhalt, Merseburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin , Germany and especially Neuschwanstein Castle , Bavaria, the castle where the art is stored. Evocative and appropriate musical score by Alexandre Desplat who also appears as a secondary actor . This lavishly film was well co-produced by Columbia Pictures in association with 20th Century Fox and Babelsberg Studio, being compellingly directed and produced by George Clooney . However , the film received mixed reviews from critics .
The flick was based on actual historical events , they are the followings : The "Monuments Men," were a group of approximately 345 men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered for service in the newly created MFAA section during World War II. Many had expertise as museum directors, curators, art historians, artists, architects, and educators. As a platoon going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners . Their job description was simple: to protect cultural treasures so far as war allowed. A task force appointed to research the origin of the robbed art has said that thousands pictures and sculptures fall into the category of art looted or extorted by the Nazis from Jewish collectors . These include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne and others.