As Allied armies battered the Wehrmacht on all fronts toward the close of World War II, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler issued an order that all cultural artifacts the Nazis had looted from Jewish collectors, museums and churches should be destroyed. These ran the gamut from paintings and drawings to sculptures and illuminated manuscripts, all worth a fortune.
Much of this treasure trove, thankfully, was saved by a special unit of the American army established in 1944. George Clooney’s feature film, The Monuments Men, now available on the Netflix streaming network, dramatizes this almost forgotten footnote in the history of the war.
Clooney, filling the lead role, plays Frank Stokes, a man driven by a lofty mission: to save the West’s rich artistic heritage — buildings, monuments and works of art — before the Nazis can destroy it. As he reminds U.S. government officials in a presentation at the outset of the movie, Western civilization is the sum of its cultural legacy.
Stokes assembles a team of curators, art historians and museum directors tasked with the job of ensuring that the Mona Lisa will still be smiling, so to speak, when hostilities finally end. They’re portrayed by, among others, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray and Hugh Bonneville (the debonnair British actor who plays the lord of the manor in the television series Downton Abbey).
After landing by boat on the beaches of Normandy, following the Allied invasion of Nazi-held France, they fan out in an attempt to track down the artifacts Germany has expropriated for a museum Hitler is planning to build in the Austrian city of Linz.
James Granger (Damon), one of the sleuths, turns to Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) — a Parisian who reluctantly works for the Nazis — for local assistance. She proves to be very helpful.
The film raises an important point: Is a piece of art, however precious, worth a man’s life? The question arises after two of Stokes’ operatives are killed in the line of duty in France and Belgium.
Thanks to a clue, Stokes and his men stumble upon an astonishing cache of art concealed in a copper mine in Germany. As the Red Army converges on a corner of the country the Soviet Union is due to occupy, they make off with valuable paintings and statues.
The Monuments Men coaxes competent performances from its multilingual cast, but it’s hardly a memorable movie. Chugging along in fits and starts, it tells a story worth telling, but the impression it leaves is rather faint.