It never looks good when a movie is pushed from the spotlight month of October to the relative obscurity of February. So when George Clooney's The Monuments Men was bumped from Oscar season to a time when studios often dump films that aren't well regarded, that wasn't a good sign.
When the decision was made, the story was that the film wasn't ready yet. Clooney and company needed more time to finish the movie's visual effects. Given the period setting and wartime locations, that seemed believable. No one wants to see actors walking in front of obvious green screen scenery. Warships and plans, bombed-out landscapes and historically accurate locations couldn't look pixelated if the movie was to be taken seriously. Clooney surely didn't want to tarnish his reputation and let down his all-star cast either.
The presumption is that the original intention to release The Monuments Men in December was to make it an awards contender. With a cast boasting Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman (along with 2012 Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin), perhaps it would've stood out among the other Oscar hopefuls, such as American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street. After seeing the movie, however, the February release seems appropriate. The Monuments Men just isn't good enough to stand alongside this year's likely awards winners.
But if Clooney is to be taken at his word that Oscar ambitions weren't all that important to him and the studio, and the hope was to make an entertaining, accessible film, he arguably accomplished that objective. The Monuments Men would have been a good fit for the holiday season, when children are out of school, families are together and seeing a movie is a popular pastime.
This mission of rescuing stolen works of art from Nazi Germany is a great untold story and to make it into a movie is a good example of Clooney's taste, along with that of filmmaking partner Grant Heslov. Filmgoers may want to learn more about this story after watching the movie, if for no other reason than the script just doesn't take the time to explain as much as it probably should. Perhaps Robert Edsel's source book (and his other stories of such endeavors by other countries) will sell more copies now to fulfill that curiosity.
Unfortunately, Clooney's ability as a director may not match his storytelling curiosity — at least not yet. (That topic probably warrants a post of its own.) You can see that the idea was to harken back to a previous generation of war films. This isn't meant to depict the grueling ordeals of war like Saving Private Ryan or Lone Survivor. We're not seeing limbs blown off or intestines hanging out.
I wonder if we've become accustomed to that "real" depiction of war nowadays. However, Clooney doesn't take that approach, which sometimes makes the movie feel as if it's glossing over the horrors of war. Perhaps it's just understood that war is terrible and the point was to tell this story.
The real problem might be that the script doesn't give viewers an opportunity to really get to know these characters, to care about them. So when some of the men Clooney's character, Frank Stokes, assembles for this mission are killed, those deaths don't resonate as they should. One death receives a grim, powerful shot when it finally occurs. But the lead up to it is almost treated with a lighter touch. Maybe that was the attempt to get us to care about the person who dies.
But that's really just one example of how inconsistent the tone of the script and the movie is. At times, The Monuments Men comes off like a light-hearted comedy, with several jokes and comical situations to keep us entertained. The script too often relies on two gags, in particular: Matt Damon's inability to speak French well and Bob Balaban looking like a cartoon character in his ill-fitting military garb. And oh yeah — these guys are all old and aren't really soldiers.
Actually, that last point is yet another thing that felt glossed over in storytelling. Stokes travels around to systematically hire each member of his team — the museum curator, the architect, the sculptor — as if he's assembling The Art Scholar Avengers. Most of this is done in a montage, with quick glimpses of Stokes finding his men who eagerly sign on. Maybe every one of the Monuments soldiers signed on willingly, no questions asked.
Yet it felt like a missed opportunity for these men to not at least express some reservations. These men were in their forties and fifties. They had families and careers in academia. Some of them had apparently been soldiers and fought in previous wars.
But such character notes are barely mentioned and mostly just mined for laughs as the guys go through basic training. (Balaban and Bill Murray are particularly effective here. A better movie might have just followed this pair.) Stokes is just referred to as "Lieutenant," John Goodman's Walter Garfield is "Sargeant," and so forth.
No one had any hesitation about going into war zones to tell soldiers not to bomb buildings where historic works of art were housed or having to fight Nazis to rescue paintings and sculptures? Again, maybe it was just understood that this was such a noble cause and worthy undertaking that very few questions were asked. Just keep the story moving. There's only so much that can be covered. But maybe that indicates that this story would've worked better as a miniseries than a feature film. Of course, then it probably wouldn't have had Clooney and company attached.
Ultimately, The Monuments Men comes off as a storybook telling of this mission. It just doesn't dig too deep into its characters or story. It doesn't dwell on grisly details. And it presumes — perhaps rightly so — that you have some knowledge of World War II history and some of the world's most famous works of art.
There are many monologues and speeches devoted to the importance of rescuing millions of pieces of stolen art, lest entire cultures and their stories be erased from history. Art aficionados and scholars may enjoy seeing historic works throughout the film, whether hidden away in a salt mine or hanging on a Nazi's wall as part of a stolen collection. (The latter scenario is the basis of arguably the movie's best, most gripping scene.)
Personally, perhaps I was naive to think that Clooney's film could possibly challenge the current awards system in which Oscar contenders all seem to hit theaters in October or later. What if The Monuments Men was actually an award-worthy contender, as most films released in December (excepting the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings type of blockbuster) tend to be? Could a Best Picture candidate actually come out in February and sustain momentum for nearly a year? Unfortunately, this isn't the movie to fight that battle. (And that battle isn't likely to be fought anytime soon.)
