Monuments Men (2014)

Frank Stokes (Clooney) summons a crew of men with an expertise of fine art and architecture to brave the extreme front lines of war torn Europe. There is a close race to rescue the continents heritage from both the Nazi and Soviet Party.

The Famous faces that were spread across the film posters for this second world war escapade it is hard to decipher whether they are meant to be stone faced art enthusiast or smirky school children, also struggling to decide just how seriously the matter is at hand. The plot is also promising a group of old friends hunting down lost pieces of fine art in dangerous territories of Nazi ridden Europe, to stop them destroying the culture of humanity – paintings, books, sculptures and icons. The main question in this film is a work of art worth more than a Human life. Is IT really though?

The film is made up of moments with sections of Bill Murray's (Campbell) hearing a recording on a tanoy of his family at Christmas. Matt Damon’s (Granger) hanging a painting in an abandoned Jewish home in post-occupied France. Also when Jean Dujardins (Clermont) and John Goodman’s (Garfield)  discovery of a thoroughbred horse, but then becomes a dangerous discovery of something else.

These moments tend to fall short ever so quickly and so does Clooney. Theres No extravagant rescue of fine Art just montages where the group split up almost very representational of Scooby doo. This shows very little chemistry to group until the last 20 minutes. I also find the editing is sloppy and the extra story line added in there with ‘lets always have Paris’ this spurious-romance between Damon and Cate Blanchett (Claire) its very pointless and manipulated.

With its sparkling and wonderful cast this film would have been better as a mini series with more detail and story to each rescue of art, where its threads seemed cut off so frustratingly short. 

They had so much substructure to build from like ‘the Train’ (1964) which is intensely engrossing account of the sabotage of the Nazi endeavor to smuggle a trainload of art treasures

Unfortunately the film is inadequately constructed due to the dazzling cast.

The film felt like a slow rush.

George Clooney

Frank Stokes

Matt Damon

James Granger

Bill Murray

Richard Campbell

John Goodman

Walter Garfield

Jean Dujardin

Jean Claude Clemont