It’s Paris 1943 and the Germans celebrate their stolen paintings by sending a reluctant Claire (Cate Blanchett) to retrieve the champagne flutes. It’s clear early on that she’s a trader. While over in America….Frank Stokes (George Clooney) lectures on art and the fact that as war forges forth, a team of scholars should be assembled to save European priceless art.
Enter Matt Damon, a restoration artist, the first recruit for this reverse Oceans 11 mission. Soon the team is rounded out by John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville (better known as Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey,) and finally, the French Oscar winning actor, Jean Dujardin. As they protect buildings and monuments the film seems to be missing a lot more than its stolen art. Somewhere early on, Clooney begins forcing our beliefs that art means more than a man’s life, and perhaps he’s right, but his own troops don’t take that mission seriously. Instead, the film struggles with a story, despite a plot, balancing between corny screwball, melancholy and the occasional drama we have trouble adapting to.
There is a lot of literary license in this film and that’s fine, it’s to entertain us, and for the most part, the settings feel realistic and accurate, an earnest effort to deliver a ‘nice’ film which it is. But in certain scenes its caper soundtrack seems to signal Men Who Stare at Goats instead of men who stare at Hitler. Names are changed, plot is embellished, but somehow neatly told within two hours. In the end it never organically unfolds into one story, instead being a mishmash of vignettes. ♚ ♛ 1/2