How can I help you steal our stolen art?

The Monuments Men

(2014)

How do you end up making a movie with a cast and premise this good so goddamn boring? I had hopes for The Monuments Men, based on both those good solid reasons; it was in my films to see for both 2013 and this year, even though I should have heeded the warning signs when the release date was delayed. After all, it couldn’t be anything but at very least entertaining. Could it? Unfortunately this is George Clooney the director in complete disarray, clueless over to how to string a plot together (with co-writer and frequent collaborator Grant Heslov) and inept at introducing any kind of pace, urgency or drama into his filmmaking. He’s not even that endearing in his familiar anchoring star turn.

He and Heslov previously teamed on Good Night, and Good Luck and The Ides of March, both buoyed somewhat by having a politically invested Clooney (even if his points are relatively soft and familiar ones). Heslov also directed Gorgeous George in the oft chastised but actually quite enjoyable The Men Who Stare at Goats (the ending stinks, and the attempts to string Jon Ronson’s episodic journalistic tome/TV series into a coherent narrative are patchy at best, but there’s enough offbeat goodness in there to satisfy). You can quite see why they snapped up the rights to The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M Edsel but even the title of his true tale of the quest to find art treasures looted by the Nazis is more exciting than their “dramatisation”.

Perhaps there was no story to muster? The hunt of the title was merely a misnomer, and the Yanks just fell upon the art as fortuitously as they do in the movie. In which case, Clooney and Heslov should probably have dispensed with any pretence towards fidelity and made something up with the loosest of connections to the historical subject matter. At least the result might have been involving. You’ve got a load of bumbling old duffers inept at any attempts to engage in warfare? Watch some old episodes of Dad’s Army for inspiration, Grant and George; the box set is pretty cheap these days. Stuck for how to make a quest for treasure colourful? How about Kelly’s Heroes or (George’s own) Three Kings?

It seems not. Clooney and Heslov are caught in the trap of earnest respectfulness, when what this needed may have been outright irreverence. At every turn (or exceedingly slow sideways movement) they sink into a mire of lumpenly saluting these brave men but forget to make them in any way brave or charismatic. How could you not want to spend time in the company of John Goodman, Jean Dujardin and Bill Murray? Bill Murray! Usually Murray’s dryness invites the viewer in on the joke. Here it’s a sign of how disenchanted he is with the whole enterprise. Or maybe, as he has said, he had a ruddy good time. It just doesn’t translate to the viewer.

I don’t think the serious-funny push-pull (depending on how you believe, the delayed release reflects the tonal struggle or incomplete special efects) is nearly as problematic as how inert The Monuments Men is structurally. At no point is any momentum built up. Every single (traditionally successful) plot device falls flat on its face; rounding up the usual suspects, sending the unprepared recruits into a war zone, splitting them up for their individual missions, then the race (read, sedate stroll) against time to get hold of the goodies before the damn Russkies. It could be a charmless affair but still tell an intriguing story, but there’s nothing to fire the mind.

The philosophical points are beaten out with all the subtlety of a claw hammer on the cranium, so much so that, come the final scene, we even get the President directly asking Lieutenant Clooney the very dilemma George has been repeatedly mulling throughout (is art worth a man’s life?) This, without naming names, comes up because a couple of top chaps are dispensed by the terrible Boche. The incidents themselves lack any impact, but we’re asked to mourn these men and believe that the remaining group are terribly affected by their loss. Just so we’re sure of this, the truly rotten score by Alexandre Desplat tries to stir the emotions. For the rest of the time Desplat follows the most hackneyed, militaristic drumroll.

Surely if you’re going to make a movie about the importance of art you need to instil an appreciation of the same? There has to be awe, and wonder, and beauty. You never once believe that any of these guys give a shit about paintings. Murray only wakes up when he finds an immense cache of gold (any hope that his scene at the dentist will find him reliving his cameo in Little Shop of Horrors quickly evaporates, and Stripes is a lifetime away). As does Clooney the director momentarily, which tells you a lot about where the guy who thinks the Elgin Marbles should be returned to the Pantheon (sic) has his priorities. Even Cate Blanchett, in an utterly thankless supporting role as a frumpy secretary with a yen for Matt Damon’s man sandwich, seems more preoccupied with loathing her occupiers (she’s French, but Clooney must not have been interested in employing a genuine croissant enthusiast) than expressing her love of the old masters. Clooney and Heslov set as the great prize Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child but this pursuit is as lifeless as the sculpture itself. Phedon Papamichael’s cinematography is sometimes quite pretty, but that’s about as artistic as this movie gets.

The attempts to make Damon the butt of jokes (he’s really crap at French) make you long for the days of Ocean’s 11 and, while it’s nice to see Bob Balaban in a high profile role, his pairing with Murray never really sparks. It’s still more amenable than Goodman and Dujardin, between whom there is zero chemistry. Hugh Bonneville is a complete bore, but he’s in Downton Abbey so that puts him on any anglophile’s casting list. Apart from him and Jean, the Allies = the Americans. Which is obviously the case, as anyone who’s seen U-571 and Saving Private Ryan knows. The Germans and Russians are all faceless goons (Dimitri Leonidas’ “good German” aside). A scene where a Nazi officer is discovered posing as a civilian, “fakes” adorning the walls of his house, briefly threatens to become dramatic but quickly resumes the picture’s otherwise listless form.

Somehow The Monuments Men hasn’t completely tanked. Itmay be set to take up residence alongside Leatherheads as stillborn Clooney picture, but it wont stop studios giving him the greenbacks to make more. It says something about the lack of achievement here that you’re left idly contemplating how, if the Nazis had destroyed all that art, at least we wouldn’t have had to sit through this movie.

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog