#14 MONUMENTS MEN

#14 MONUMENTS MEN
Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Kate Blanchet, Jean DuJardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville.

Directed by George Clooney.

118 minutes long.

It's 1943 the tide of the war is turning, the Germany war machine is failing and the allies and the Russians are racing for Berlin, while the German plunder, rob and steal anything they can get their stinking hands on. But who's going to stop them and save the art? George Clooney and his band of art experts that's who!

Based on the true story of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program this film follows six members of the program as they race around occupied and re-captured land alike trying to find where the German army has hidden the 30,000 pieces of art and treasure before Hitler's Nero Decree has it all destroyed.

This is a very episodic and fractured film, with the action divided up between three groups of the Monuments Men as each tries their damndest to save a truly astonishing selection of stolen art, along the way of answering the age old question of whether art is worth a man's life? Marketed as a sort of Ocean's 11 type comedy caper film, Monuments Men is most certainly not that sort of film at all.

It has a lightness of touch which at times sits uneasily with some of the action, particularly the discovery of a barrel of gold teeth and a warehouse filled the furniture and artifacts of tens of thousands of murdered jews. This isn't really a comedy, but then neither is it a drama. Told with the pace of a stroll and featuring a lovely cast of great character actors this film never truly engages but somehow still remains an entertaining film which is made all the more poignant by the fact it's based on a true story.

6/10