This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Movie Review -The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men ***½ (PG-13) Does anyone have a richer, more enjoyable life than George Clooney? He’s not only thrived as an actor, but parlayed his success into directing and/or producing any project he sets his sights upon. Then he admirably uses that clout to tell exceptional, worthy stories, rather than settle for the easy money of blockbusters (Argo; Good Night, and Good Luck, for example). His eye for quality attracts other luminaries to pet projects like this - a fact-based account of a group of artists, too old or unfit for duty in WW II, who volunteered to enter the war zone to recover and preserve the overwhelming amount of artworks the Nazis had been plundering from all the countries they occupied. The tale is well told, with Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin (the star of The Artist), Cate Blanchett and others drawn to the fine script Clooney wrote with Grant Heslov and others. As director, Clooney generously shines the spotlight on all his cast, not just his handsome leading man of the same name.

The unlikely septet Clooney’s character assembled received a quick dose of Army boot camp, before deployment to Normandy a month after D-Day. Theirs was a low-priority mission as far as field officers were concerned, forcing them to improvise for transport and logistics. Besides the hassles with red tape, they were rushed to recapture works of cultural, historic or religious import before the Nazis got them out of reach; or even worse, destroyed them. They even had to move faster than the Russians, who were closing in from the East, and perceived as less likely to return any treasures they might find to the rightful owners. The screenplay deftly mixes comic relief, suspense and emotional high points with the serious subject of the adventure. It honors the real men and their mission by portraying them at a realistic human scale, rather than hyperbolizing this handful of architects and art scholars into a version of The Dirty Dozen. Bob Balaban ain’t going Rambo on nobody.

Expectations may well run low when a film with such a strong cast comes out in February, without the Oscar-qualifying ploy of December openings in Los Angeles and New York. This may not have contended for those honors, but it’s a highly satisfying telling of a wonderful story, and a tribute to all who helped to save more than five million pieces of art for posterity. (2/7/14)

Find out what's happening in Clayton-Richmond Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Clayton-Richmond Heights