I really liked the idea of this movie. The trailer made it seem like Ocean’s 11, but with a set of great,
aging actors, and set in World War II.
It seemed like it would be a fun ride, probably with a few anti-war
undertones to it. I wasn’t expecting anything
amazing, but I was expecting something coherent. Unfortunately, that’s not what we have
here. Director George Clooney definitely
has his heart in the right place, but unfortunately, he makes some pretty big
mistakes in bringing his pet project to the big screen.
During World War II, an art collector named Frank Stokes
(Clooney) pitches to the U.S. government that the Nazis are stealing or
destroying Europe’s great works of art, and that the government should send in
a group of art experts to ensure this art’s protection. Stout brings together an all-star cast to
hunt down these works of art, including John Goodman, Matt Damon, Hugh
Bonneville (of Downton Abbey), and
Bill Murray. You may have noticed that I
haven’t bothered to list the names of the characters each of these actors play,
and that’s because calling them characters is a bit of a stretch. The film does a great job of composing scenes
that should give us insight into these characters and make us care about them,
but it also barely makes the effort to establish the characters well enough to
make the audience care. This is
particularly emphasized when the characters split up to different European
cities and their interactions with one another are limited. I didn’t remember anyone’s name or any
defining characteristics about them because the film didn’t bother to take the
time to introduce anyone. Instead, it
lazily relies on the identifiable faces of the actors, which is a real shame
because if the actors had been allowed the chance to really build these
characters, this could have been a great ensemble movie.
What this film really lacks is structure. The individual scenes are very well directed,
and the actors do a good job with what they’re given, but looking at the larger
picture, everything feels so disjointed.
The film will often spend a few minutes on an amusing, but ultimately
inconsequential scene, then cut to an equal inconsequential scene with
different characters. There isn’t much
of an act structure to this film other than a bunch of guys wandering around
Europe, looking for stolen art, and occasionally getting shot at. There are a couple of death scenes that in a
more cohesive film would have been heartbreaking, but here they come off as
cheap attempts to pull at its audience’s heartstrings. The film does get its act together a little
bit toward the end for a phoned-in climax, but by that point I just wanted the
credits to roll.
You can tell that George Clooney really cared about telling
this story. His various monologues that
he speaks from a script that he wrote are evidence enough. However, I don’t think he should have been
sitting in the director’s chair if he wanted this telling to be
successful. He seems to know how to make
an individual scene work, but he doesn’t seem to know how to make the important
establishing pieces stand out or even exist in the first place. And for that reason, despite the good
performances and interesting premise, I can’t recommend this film. There’s just nothing substantial enough to
outweigh its faults.
Have a favorite George Clooney film? Let me know in the comments.
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