The Monuments Men (2014)

Jack and I loved this based-on-a-true-story tale of a ragtag band of folks saving European art from Hitler at the end of World War II. Jack called it an homage to a 50s war movie. Critics have been harsh (34%, audiences 51% on rottentomatoes) (when we saw it a month ago critics were at 33 and audiences 58) and we don't get it. The script is funny, the art beautiful, and the cast star-studded.

On NPR I heard co-writer/producer Grant Heslov (George Clooney's partner in both) tell of the day he walked into a bookstore and happened to see the book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Heslov bought it, read it, optioned it, co-wrote the script with Clooney, they co-produced it with a few others, and Clooney directed and starred in it. Oh, and Heslov has a cameo as a chain-smoking doctor.

Despite everyone's jokes about whom he dates, Clooney (last blogged as an actor in Gravity and as a director in The Ides of March) plays his own age, with gray hair at the temples and his signature wry sense of humor front and center. Matt Damon (most recently in Behind the Candelabra) isn't as funny but is a good foil to Clooney. Trivia: Daniel Craig was supposed to play Damon's part. He wouldn't have been funny at all. We get plenty of funny from the next three. Bill Murray (last in Hyde Park on the Hudson, playing FDR), John Goodman (Inside Llewyn Davis), and Bob Balaban (mentioned only briefly in Moonrise Kingdom, discussed more in Thin Ice) play off each other beautifully. Then there's Jean Dujardin, having moved seamlessly from the silent movie The Artist to speaking roles such as The Wolf of Wall Street, he brings passion and humor as well. Hugh Bonneville (his 34 episodes as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in Downton Abbey make it hard to remember any of the 101 other credits listed on imdb) has a good part, and one woman, Cate Blanchett (just collected her second Oscar for Blue Jasmine), shines as the all-business Frenchwoman Clair Simone. Each of their characters is based on a real person with a slightly different name. Because of spoilers, read the Rolling Stone review after seeing the movie to learn the real names and characters' names. Watch for a cameo from George's father Nick Clooney at the end.

The prolific Alexandre Desplat (last blogged for Rust and Bone, despite being Oscar-nominated for scoring Philomena afterwards) gives us a rousing soundtrack, quite reminiscent of Jack's 1950s war movies. You can listen to a nice 20 minute set on this link.

In the closing credits there are stills of the real Monuments Men, and much more can be learned at Edsel's foundation, the "official site," and the movie site. Slate.com did a thorough analysis and points out discrepancies in this spoiler-laden article.

Well, we say damn the torpedoes, er, critics, and full speed ahead. We thought it good fun.