Monument Men Story Quite Amazing....

If nothing else, 2013 was the year of the "true event" movie.  Five of the nine movies nominated for an Oscar this year were based or inspired (some more loosely then others) on a real life incident ("American Hustle", "Captain Philips", "Dallas Buyers Club", "12 Years a Slave", and "Wolf of Wall Street").  "Lee Daniels The Butler" and "Saving Mr. Banks" were two others that did very well.  The trend continues into 2014, as another such movie recently premiered that is just as good as the ones above: "The Monuments Men".

The Monuments Men is the amazing "true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history", and focuses on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by President Franklin D. Roosevelt with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. Not your typical platoon either, as the self-proclaimed "Monuments Men" (MM) consisted of museum directors, curators, and art historians rather than soldiers and fighters.

If being in constant, imminent danger wasn't enough for these military amateurs, the MM found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1,000 years of culture, as the German army were under orders to destroy everything captured if anything happened to Adolph Hitler. 

Directed (and starring) George Clooney, MM was a well told, entertaining story of an event I personally knew nothing about.  But after watching it, I really admired what these people put on the line and the risks they took to achieve their goal, which, for the most part, was successful.  But not without a cost (you'll have to watch the movie to see what that is). The ironic thing is that much of the Monument Mens success wouldn't have been possible without the help of a woman. 

The character Claire Simone (played nicely by Cate Blanchett) is based on Rose Valland, the real life curator of the Jeu De Paume museum in Paris, France. Valland was left behind after much of the museum's art was captured during the Nazi occupation. She kept track of all works of art that came through the museum recording where they came from and where they went after they left the museum.  After approaching and convincing her, she ultimately provided this valuable information to the MM, who were then able to retrieve most of it.

Monument Men (and Woman) from top, l-r: Clooney, Damon,
Murray, Goodman, Dujardin, Balaban, Bonneville and Blanchett

The rest of the MM platoon includes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban, and Dimitri Leonidas. Leonidas, by the way, although the lesser known actor of the group, actually played one of the more important roles in the film as a German-speaking bi-lingual American used to spy on unknowing captive German soldiers.  Much valuable information was gathered by this character's eavesdropping.

Of the core group of actors, I particularly enjoyed Dujardin (2012 Best Actor winner for "The Artist") and Balaban's portrayals of their characters. All were good though, and the story quite amazing. It was hard for me to believe it actually happened, and that this group (there were actually more than eight Monuments Men in reality) were able to achieve as much as they did with such great odds stacked against them. 

Using my rating system (1= skip it, 2= rent it, 3= worth a matinee, 4= worth full price), I’d give it a “3.5”.