The Monuments Men (2014)
Directed by George Clooney
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?
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3 films that influenced The Monuments Men
What critics say influenced The Monuments Men
Had these two iconic works really been the object of the film’s quest, The Monuments Men might have played with the single-minded authority of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, another obvious influence (right down to the final scene, a brazen theft of Spielberg’s visual uplift).
Clooney and his cast mates (Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and Jean Dujardin) make a fine-looking international ensemble, even if sometimes the movie’s star power, combined with overly familiar war-movie scenes, sometimes feels like Oceans 11 plus Saving Private Ryan divided by Raiders of the Lost Ark.
What might have been a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" period romp through or "Inglourious Basterds"-style re-imagining of World War II-era themes is instead a nostalgic but lethargic ode to conventional star-driven and old-fashioned storytelling.
Likewise, with composer Alexandre Desplat’s arrangements seeming to echo John Williams’ iconic score from Raiders of the Lost Ark early on, it’s easy to suspect that we’re in for a rousing adventure though war-ravaged Europe.
In this case, “old” encompasses propaganda films from the ’40s, all-star flicks such as “The Great Escape” from the ’60s and Steven Spielberg’s retro “Raiders of the Lost Ark” from 1981.
I don’t think so, because I was sorta hoping for something like Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Ocean’s Eleven, and this certainly does not qualify.
What might have been a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" period romp through or "Inglourious Basterds"-style re-imagining of World War II-era themes is instead a nostalgic but lethargic ode to conventional star-driven and old-fashioned storytelling.
Based on the 2009 book by Robert M. Edsel, the real-life story of the Monuments Men is practically tailor-made for the big screen; a unique slant on the typical WWII film that, at least on paper, appeared to be equal parts “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Inglourious Basterds.”
In Inglourious Basterds , his version of The Dirty Dozen , Quentin Tarantino fantasized that the Jews rose to kill Hitler.
But the crazy-guys-at-war genre has recently been blown over the top by Quentin Tarantino, in “Inglourious Basterds,” and parodied by Ben Stiller, in “Tropic Thunder.”
All that’s missing for a true Ocean’s Eleven reunion is Brad Pitt, but he probably got his fill of WWII hijinks back with Inglourious Basterds, which The Monuments Men plays like a more stately, watered-down version of (even going so far as to include Cate Blanchett as a French resistance member who could pass for Mélanie Laurent’s bookish older sister).
Despite a passing reference to John Wayne — and what feels like a hopeful invocation of Wayne’s later work with Howard Hawks — the characters are less “El Dorado” types and more like Cutie (Mr. Damon), Goofy (Mr. Murray), Starchy (Mr. Balaban), Boozy (Hugh Bonneville as Donald Jeffries), Frenchy (Jean Dujardin as Jean Claude Clermont) and Jewish Guy (Dimitri Leonidas as Sam Epstein).