Presented as an affectionate Second World War mission caper movie in the Dirty Dozen mould, The Monuments Men didn't need to be a work of art, but it still proves a monumental disappointment. That its remarkable premise - a 1945 Allied "treasure hunt" for millions of paintings and sculptures stolen by the Nazis - is true proves an intractable problem for co-writers George Clooney (who also directs and stars as the avuncular team leader) and Grant Heslov, whose respectfully dry fidelity to the facts neutralises the chance of any rip-roaring entertainment. A terrific cast - John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville - are all equally underused in superficially etched roles, while the directorial precision shown in Good Night, and Good Luck deserts Clooney here. A token romantic subplot involving family man Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett's amorous curator fizzles to nothing, and the film plods from leadenly comic vignette (a French village dentist wielding a mallet) to jarringly serious interlude (the gruesome discovery of a barrel full of gold fillings) without ever cohering into a satisfying whole.
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