Monuments Men Review

Rating: 6/10 (19 March 2014)

Back behind the camera, American actor and ladies lover, G.Clooney, directs the unbelievable story of WWII platoon tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners.
It must have been hard to find a new angle, a new point of view in order to display an original and mostly unknown exciting story. It could appeared as a legacy of Frankenheimer film's The Train (1964) but it was at that time still more focused on the French Resistance. It seems to me that Monuments Men is in the same genre as famous films such as The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, Von Ryan's Express, The Longest Day, A Bridge too Far or even The Great Escape. All those masterpieces were epic films gathering a bunch of famous Cinema figures with suspense and humour. The Ocean's saga directed by Soderbergh works quite on the same concept. Monuments Men is highlighting a part of the WWII history. However its most important strength is that this films is not an Historical/Arts lesson or a boring documentary on the period and people. It finds the appropriate ton and pace right from the beginning. A sort of comic and non- solemnly ton. Plus, each one of the characters, apart from the team is interesting. They have their own identity. This film is build around more than Arts and War, it's build around character's back stories and how each one of them affected and helped the film to grow. Finally the question behind it is: Can you risk your life for a piece of Art? The film answer is clearly YES! Personally, I don't think that I will find myself running into a house on fire in order to save a painting someday. (A family member...yes... or my dog.) Monuments men is peculiar of Clooney's way of directing, Capra's idealist heir, who systematically search hope and redemption in Human nature.
Overall this film is engaging, entertaining and sentimental.