THE MONUMENTS MEN: 7.5/10 Being a fan of history, WWII movies and a lot of the cast of this film, I got exactly what I was expecting: an old-fashioned war epic about men on a mission that is pretty much a by-the-book war film with the prerequisite characters. You have your charismatic leader (George Clooney), the second-in-command who is alternately more naive and also more savvy (Matt Damon), the burly, gruff sergeant (John Goodman), the dry wit (Bill Murray), the short guy (Bob Balaban), the foreigner who needs to fight for his country in a roundabout way (Jean Dujardin), the soldier wanting to redeem himself (Hugh Bonneville) and of course, the woman whose country has been raped and pillaged by the Nazis and who now trusts no one, until a handsome married man shows up (Cate Blanchett). All the archetypes are here, the plot line is pretty much one you expect, (SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!), a couple of cast members bite the dust, and there is a last-minute scramble at the end before more bad guys show up. In other words, we have a 2014 version of a film that could have been made at MGM or Fox in the decade after the war ended, just not with the cast those studios would have put together, a bit more language but almost the same amount of blood, in color instead of B/W...and I enjoyed it for what it is-a solidly made, well acted and entertaining studio picture. There are no fancy directorial flourishes or enigmatic characters or unanswered questions-just good craftsmanship, and I appreciate that kind of film quite a bit. I also liked Alexandre Desplats score-not your typical Zimmermush but with some actual melody, and I liked a scene where Murrays package from home has a record that his family made, but since he is in a battle zone one of his comrades comes up with a way for him to hear it that is rather sweet. There is good chemistry between the cast members (Goodman/Dujardin and Murray/Balaban work well together) and the way that the latter team figure out the provenance of paintings they see in a German farmhouse is quite clever and actually reminded me of a less intense version of a similar scene at the beginning of Tarantinos INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. The Sony Blu-Ray I rented from Redbox had no extras other than trailers for other films, but the picture and sound were quite well done. For a really entertaining WWII saga, it is worth renting. I have been conjuring just who would have been cast in a version of this story from 45-55: Clooney-Gable or Grant; Damon-Joel McCrea; Goodman-Paul Douglas; Dujardin-Jean Gabin; Murray-Buster Keaton; Balaban-Eddie Bracken; Bonneville-Douglas Fairbanks, Jr or perhaps Errol Flynn; Blanchett-Gene Tierney or Anne Baxter.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 21:14:18 +0000
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