The main concept sounds like it would be more interesting than it really is. A team of art scholars led by Frank Stokes (George Clooney) are on a mission to protect art from the Nazis, who are going around various places like churches to steal pieces. Hitler wants to use all of the stolen art to be part of a really big museum.
In all reality, I personally do not see why that is such a bad thing. I mean yeah, it is owned by Hitler, but the ultimate art museum sounds pretty cool to me. This brings me to the main problem with this film. It really does not give the audience any reason to care about the mission. It certainly tries. There are several speeches by Clooney's character in which he talks about how important it is to culture. However, it does not do anything to show why it is important other than art scholars getting excited about art. A way they could have done this better is by showing normal people being deeply affected by the fact that the art was stolen.
Another problem with this movie, is it really does not utilize its extremely talented cast. It has George Clooney, Bill Murray, Matt Damon and John Goodman. All of them are perfectly capable of producing good comedy. While there are some good comedic moments -- particularly in the beginning -- some of it either falls flat or does not make sense. Furthermore, the script never took time to distinguish the characters from each other. John Goodman's character is not any different from Bill Murray's and those are two very different actors who have very different styles of comedy.
The conflict in this movie is also pretty weak. They simply need to find where the Nazis are hiding the art before they...put it in a museum I guess. At a certain point, the characters find out that Hitler sent a decree for the Nazis to destroy all the art if he dies before the war. Then it becomes them needing to find the art before the dictator dies. Even with this in mind, there is no sense of urgency given to the audience because the movie never gave it a reason to care.
There is another attempt at conflict between James Granger (Matt Damon) and Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett). Granger wants to get some information about the arts, and Simone will not give it to him. Her reasons do not seem very logical. She seems to think the Americans only want the pieces for a museum, which -- unless I missed something -- is not the case. For some reason, Granger never corrects her by saying "No lady, that's not us, that's the Nazis." Don't worry though, the conflict is eventually replaced by some forced sexual tension that comes from out of nowhere.
I will give this film credit. There are some good parts. One in particular is when Granger steps on a mine. This scene is introduced in the trailer, and it is pretty intense. Had the rest of the film been like it, this movie would have received a better rating from me.
I give it two out of five stars. You do not need to go out of your way to see it. However, it is not mind-numbingly stupid. It is just kind of boring.
Content: Rated PG-13. There is some shooting violence with some blood shown afterwards (no blood splatters like many R rated films do). There is mild language.
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