Movie Breakdown: The Monuments Men

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

An all-star cast tries to find art stolen by the Nazis during WWII.  George Clooney directs.

The Reality:

I was hoping The Monuments Men would be another Clooney directorial effort on the level of Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind or Good Night, And Good Luck, but it’s more like the sort of okay Leatherheads.  Clooney clearly finds the story he’s telling to be interesting and of note, but he never bothers to make you actually care about anything happening on the screen.  I honestly can’t recall any of the character’s names in the movie.  This is partly because none of the actors bothered to develop a character and instead choose to just play themselves, but it’s mostly due to the unfortunate fact that nothing about The Monuments Men is memorable.

On a related note, I think The Monuments Men would make for a stellar TV show.

The Lesson:

Maybe next time, George.