I was not expecting what I got out of Monuments Men. I thought it was going to be a thrilling chase, a historical masterpiece, and a Hitler bashing. Of course, I should have known better, given the casting.
George Clooney (Ocean's 11, The Descendants) is a college professer, Frank Stokes, who convinces a group of government officials that, not only is Hitler stealing precious artwork and destroying old buildings all across Europe, but that the preservation of such artwork is worth risking the lives of the soldiers. While the officials aren't about to let their soldiers die for art, they do allow Stokes to assemble his own team of restoration men. Enter Matt Damon (The Bourne Trilogy), John Goodman (Roseanne, The Big Lebowski), Bill Murray (Ghostbusters, any Wes Anderson film), Jean Dujardin (The Artist, The Wolf of Wall Street), and Bob Balaban (Gosford Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Once in Europe, the men join up with Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Notting Hill), a man who sees this mission as an opportunity to redeem himself from his past mistakes, and Cate Blanchett (Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), a French resistor who trusts no one after the Germans killed her brother.
With a cast like this, I should have expected a funny script, but I wasn't prepared for the wonderful mixture of humor and sentiment. The movie speaks about prejudice, about friendship, and about how sacrifice is worth preserving an entire people's history.