★★★★☆
The Monuments Men, George Clooney’s fourth directorial outing, based on his self-penned screenplay adaptation of the true story book, has the unenviable challenge of following his previous outstanding directorial endeavours (Good Night, and Good Luck and The Ides of March).
The film is set at the height of the Second World War. Germany has conquered much of the European mainland and is plundering the private and public art collections of the vanquished. Works which fail to conform with national socialist ideas and tastes are destroyed.
Clooney plays Frank Stokes, an altruistically concerned art aficionado who is determined to recover as much of the loot from Germany as possible. Stokes’ mission is given the go-ahead by President Roosevelt. He is commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Army where he pulls together a small group of devoted art collectors, curators and architects, played on screen by an ensemble cast to die for (Bill Murray, John Goodman and Matt Damon among them).
It’s a dazzling set-up; the most cherished treasures of human creativity are on the brink of being lost forever, and this rag-tag group of drinkers, nerds and simple family men are the only ones interested in intervening.
The main focus of The Monuments Men is the dangers to which this group of ageing men are prepared to expose themselves for the sake of art. Goodman’s character hobbles around war-torn Europe aided by a walking stick, whilst Murray’s, in one hilarious sequence, is so intensely relaxed that he confronts a lone enemy soldier by lowering his own rifle, lying down on a patch of grass and lighting up a cigarette. They could not be any less suited to the theatre of war.
The film is subtle, elegant and respectful of its source material. Although it occasionally lapses into sentimentalism, this doesn’t spoil the overall tone. Clooney is increasingly proficient in his craft as a serious director
and manages to produce an engaging adaptation of a fascinating historical account. The film’s central message is that the heroism of the Second World War was not simply about destroying evil, but attempting to salvage good among a decimated Europe. The artwork detailed in The Monuments Men is a symbol of an identity worth preserving, and the courage of those few men who risked all for its sake is a spectacle you can’t help but admire.
