Popcorn Column by Michael S. Goldberger

Columbia Pictures George Clooney directed and starred in 'The Monuments Men.'

Be it ever so noble and righteous an endeavor, filmgoers who partake of George Clooney's "The Monuments Men" will doubtfully wish to experience it again when it plays the flat screen in the den. Viewing Grant Heslov's screenplay, based on two books detailing the true-to-life tale about the men and women appointed to retrieve art treasures the Nazis stole during World War II, is more a respectful pilgrimage than an entertainment.

Essentially a grand scale scavenger hunt played for the very highest stakes, it is the loftiness of the task itself that intrigues, and not the poorly written, slow boat to its ends. Surely posterity wouldn't have minded a bit more artistic license for the sake of dramatic fluidity.

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Call it "The Dirty Dozen Light" as this mission, although it is played with real guns, a vile antagonist and all the dangers those circumstances entail, presents a motley crew of unlikely candidates for wartime heroics. The bulk of them beyond acceptable fighting age, they are comprised of noted authorities on the arts. If they are convivially ragtag, they are nonetheless hifalutin, giving them that whimsical appeal audiences expect from such a conclave.
 
Although the names have been changed, probably for legal considerations, the principals can easily be matched to their actual inspirations. Mr. Clooney, directing himself in this patriotic paean to the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, is Frank Stokes, the Harvard art conservationist who talks President Roosevelt into allowing him to form the unit. In all, there were approximately 400 participants. Here we home in on eight of them.
 
Matt Damon plays James Granger, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, smuggled into occupied Paris to figure out just where the Nazis, under the authority of Hermann Goering, are stashing their ill-gotten gains. There, he seeks the collaboration of the script's unofficial Monument Woman, Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), a French art scholar who, from the museum where she worked, was able to espy the comings and goings of the pillaging intruders.
 
Other players, all of whom chide each other in the generically familiar style common to such film assemblages, manage a likeability that, alas, can't ameliorate a so-so script. But they give it the old college try. Bill Murray, doing that stare that says disbelief, curiosity, disdain and benevolence all in one grimace, is Richard Campbell, architect extraordinaire.

Likewise, John Goodman as famed sculptor Walter Garfield, amuses merely by the humorous incongruence of his heft and demeanor being squished into an army uniform. Adding a little Continental panache, Jean Dujardin ("The Artist") is Jean Claude Clermont, a French director of design. Representing the Brits, Hugh Bonneville is Donald Jeffries, a chap who hopes his service will earn him redemption from a misspent past.
 
In short, there is a delegate from each of the allied countries, determined to preserve the culture that nurtures and is the historical lifeblood of a free civilization. And of course, to put the icing on the cake, there is a tried and true enemy, second best only to Beelzebub himself: Nazis. No equivocating here…no concerns about political correctness.

Not content to merely put the world on its ear for a few years and kill millions of people, they've systematically, for fun and profit, plundered the world's fortunes. Claiming for themselves every objet d'art they can get their fascist hands on, they oxymoronically prize the artifacts of those decimated nations for whom they espouse such utter disdain.

Military historians generally agree this was among the preoccupying lunacies that ultimately led to their defeat. That, and trying to wipe out an entire peoples. Surveying the mind-boggling number of priceless paintings, sculptures, etc., the camera challenges us to identify each item in the panoply of priceless heirlooms.

In one especially forceful scene, Matt Damon's curator par excellence hangs a re-claimed portrait of a female, Jewish family member on the wall of an abandoned Paris apartment. Mademoiselle Simone asks him what he's doing, chillingly assuring that no one is returning to this dwelling. Assuming his finest Boy Scout demeanor, he replies, "I was commissioned to recover art and return it to its proper owner."

That and a few other moments work. Otherwise, the docudrama can't ever seem to get out of homage mode, even when a more sophisticated narrative might have accomplished its tribute in spades. There is no discernible subtext other than what you may construe, and no appreciable subplot.

Where Clooney's effort does, however, achieve success is in educating us to these exploits. Our interest is piqued. The suggestion here then is to skip the movie and spend the treasure you save on related literature and admission to museums where you can enjoy the fruits of The Monuments Men's virtuous labors in living color.

"The Monuments Men," rated PG-13, is a Columbia Pictures release directed by George Clooney and stars George Clooney, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett. Running time: 118 minutes.

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