The Monuments Men (2014)

“You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants and that’s exactly what we are fighting for. ” – Frank Stokes

Number of Times Seen – 1  (4 May 2014)

Brief Synopsis – Based on the true story of a unit of allied soldiers during WWII who were entrusted with trying to save the great works of art that Hitler was collecting and vowed to destroy if he lost the war.

My Take on it – This movie has gotten a lot of bad press and many people just didn’t find the movie enjoyable at all.

I felt the exact opposite.  This movie was very enjoyable and I cannot understand why this movie was so poorly received.

The director, George Clooney did just about everything right here and only got skewered for it instead of praised.

He made a wise decision to not release the movie before it was ready, deferring any chance of getting awards love (which he might not have gotten anyway, but regardless it shows that his heart was in the right place.

By choosing known actors to portray the entire unit (Matt Damon, Hugh Bonneville, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, Cate Blanchette and Bob Balaban, he helped us focus on the separate missions that the unit were sent to undertake more easily.  had he chosen no-name actors, it might have confused us more as to who was doing what as opposed to knowing mainly by seeing the actors we all know and love.

The feel of the movie is very reminiscent of WWII movies from the 60’s and 70’s that were not merely done as action war movies, but movies that were trying to tell a story of events that occurred to soldiers while not in the midst of battle during WWII.

I think that the main flaw of this movie is that it feels too rushed in many instances and it might have been better suited as a mini-series instead of cramming the whole story into just slightly less than 2 hours.  The source material is quite interesting and had the movie been in a longer format, we would have gotten to know the characters better and would have had a chance to see how they arrived at each site via the clues they were seeking in order to find the lost art treasures.

Bottom Line – Very good WWII movie.  Great choice of actors. Scenes are somewhat choppy and would probably have been better as a mini-series instead of a two hours film. Recommended!

Rating – Globe Worthy

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