Jmunney's Blog

The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program was established as part of the Allied Armies in 1943 to retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis.  The Monuments Men, the movie about this program, showed me these retrieval efforts, but it did not make me feel these retrieval efforts.  That is not entirely true, as there were moments when I my heart responded to the film’s tugging.  But overall, the effect this movie left on me was noble, but flat.  The emotions were believable, but some of them felt a little rote.  There is one oddly pitched scene in which Bill Murray’s character, Richard Campbell, receives a recording of some family members singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which Bob Balaban’s character, Preston Savitz, plays for him, and it basically came out of nowhere.  Actually, Murray and Balaban’s whole dynamic is off.  They are supposed to be an antagonistic odd couple who eventually come around to be great friends, but I never got the sense that they didn’t love hanging out with each other, Balaban’s constantly bemused face notwithstanding.

Monuments Men does not fail completely.  Frank Stokes’ (George Clooney) speeches to FDR that bookend the film make a grand case for why this endeavor needed to be taken on and why it ought to be continued after the war’s end.  Essentially, the story itself is the selling point.  It is hard to screw up completely.  And with a cast this talented, it is unlikely that the result is going to be a complete waste of everyone’s time.  But this isn’t the best work of anyone involved.  I feel like Clooney works best as a director when he has a commanding lead performance and/or a strange story.  (Although I’m guessing a bit here, as I haven’t seen Good Night, and Good Luck. or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.)  Ultimately, it’s not like there was anything all that bad about The Monuments Men, just not enough that was good.  Like, I want to rip into it, but also, I don’t? B-