Review of The Monuments Men (2014) by Samatva — 09 Feb 2014

Sometimes the point of a movie is to take you somewhere nobody has gone before, to thrill or chill, but there are other reasons for making a movie. This move memorializes people who were trying to salvage what it means to be human in the midst of inhuman atrocities. Our culture reflects who we are, or even makes us who we are, and this move clearly (and painfully) points this out.

I really appreciate that screenwriter, producer and director George Clooney took a balanced approach, mixing painful emotion with humor without resorting to gratuitous violence. Mature, intelligent moviegoers don't need blood splatter everywhere to get it that someone was shot.

People who pan this movie are missing the point. While I am sure there was at least some literary licence, as far as my scant research can tell, they stayed within reasonable sight of the true story. They respected the historical events enough to avoid the temptation of catering to the violence-numbed populous. I respect George Clooney for that. He knows the business well enough to know he was making a "dull" movie, but the story was more important to him than making some extra $$$.

The characters involved were not easy to get to know, but it seems that every actor did a good job in capturing what was known of the personalities (after being filtered through the book...?). There was a lot of talent on the set, but no detectable egos run amok - all the performances seemed professional as works of love and respect. Some could rightfully claim that these were not the best performances of these actors' careers, but I would claim they were among the most dedicated and heartfelt.

I give it a nine instead of a ten because I am rather certain it would have been a better movie if Barbara Hall had not been involved. I'm sure George had his reasons for including her, and we will never really know what it may have been without her (perhaps we can thank her of the absence of the gratuitous violence!).

Anyway, well done. It is an enjoyable look at what may be one of the last unique looks at WWII...