This movie was a real disappointment, especially considering its potential. Great storyline, amazing actors (Clooney, Damon, Blanchett, Goodman, Dujardin, Murray), but it has a crisis of identity. Does it want to be a comedy or a thriller? Being both takes a lot more skill than director George Clooney mustered here. Inglourious Basterds it is not. The plot, based on a true story about cultural experts sent to Germany to save art ferreted away by the Nazis, could have been unfolded with suspense and finesse. Instead, there is zero tension, and the movie is trivialized through quips about the age of our newly ‘enlisted men’ and other cheap laughs. Attempts at depth are just as sporadic and ineffectual, like when the camera spans a Nazi cave filled with stolen household possessions and Blanchett melodramatically describes it as “the lives of Jews.” Even the deaths of two Monuments Men fall flat, since they were never developed as real people.
Should You See It? Only if you love history and are prepared for a fairly dull two hours. —D.W.
Viewed at Galleria 6 Theatres
