100 Movie Challenge 2015 - # 11: The Monuments Men

Director: George Clooney

Genre: Drama

Runtime: 118 minutes

Year: 2014

Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban

Description: An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners.

Review: The most horrible stories about World War II have been told, but the loss of artwork during this period is an underexposed theme. For George Clooney enough reason to make a movie about it. “The Monuments Men” will be his fifth directed movie. We know Clooney best as an actor and he also takes on one of the lead roles. With him, big names like Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and John Goodman form a dream cast.

When President Roosevelt tells curator Frank Stokes that, besides many lives, lots of famous art work were lost in the war due to the Nazis. With strong arguments Stokes manages to get permission to assemble a team of art historians, museum directors and curators to find those lost treasures. The team of seven men don’t all have experience in the army.

‘True Story’ is a wide term in Hollywood. In real life hundreds of men and women were responsible for finding the cultural heritage. This isn’t the biggest problem of “The Monuments Men”. It’s a mediocre script and that gives is us a lot of dull moments and it doesn’t have a central storyline.

The soundtrack is good, but not for this movie. It’s sounds like a comedy. It does have some comedic moments here and there though. The big amount of talent is underused. George Clooney and Matt Damon are doing a routine job and Cate Blanchett can’t really shine. Hugh Bonneville can easily keep up with his colleagues and Bill Murray’s dry humor is as always a pleasure to watch.

The cynicism works, but the rest is just mediocre. I really wanted to love this movie, for its theme and the wonderful cast, despite of all the negative reviews. But a dream cast is no guarantee for success. We still have to wait for the master piece by director George Clooney.

Rating: 2,5/ 5