It’s probably not a good sign if at the end of an almost two-hour film you still struggle to remember the names of even half of the main characters. But that was certainly the case with the George Clooney-directed The Monuments Men, a curious misfire of a project, one whose ineffectiveness proved a real head-scratcher. On the surface, it’s a production that appears to possess all the working parts: a star-studded cast, an obviously unrestrained budget, and a more-than-fascinating subject. The screenplay—written by Clooney and regular partner-in-crime Grant Heslov—is based on a book by Robert M Edsel, which documents the derring-do of an Allied group of art experts who made up the ‘Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives programme’ during WWII, entrusted with recovering and restoring artworks and monuments that had been stolen by the Nazis. What’s more, it was a story that had already gained traction in the news in recent years, when authorities found a trove of more than a thousand Nazi-looted artworks in the Munich home of one Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012 (albeit reported more than a year later), as well as the discovery of an additional 60 artworks in Gurlitt’s Salzburg home early this February, a development that coincided almost perfectly with the film’s release date.

And given Clooney’s penchant for period pieces that offer semi-venerational takes on real-life figures from the past—consider his directorial efforts on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or Good Night, and Good Luck, for instance—and his clear love of classical, old-school cinema, The Monuments Men should’ve been his cup of tea. But for whatever reason, this is definitely not Clooney at his best; while the film certainly reflects his retro inclinations and admiration for historical heroics, it simply doesn’t do justice to the subject at hand, and is a complete mess in terms of both narrative and structure. What we have is a dull and extremely long art lecture of sorts wrapped in even duller layers of what barely qualify as ‘plot’, lacking in suspense or any hint of urgency. It’s a movie that depends much too heavily on the assumed charms of its actors—mostly Clooney, who just plays another shade of the same smug guy-with-all-the-quips he’s pretty much trademarked—to drag it to its very conventional conclusion.

The film opens in 1944, just as the Second World War is close to coming to an end. American art historian Frank Stokes (Clooney) is extremely worried about the fate of the Western world’s masterpieces, given the many famed cultural sites around Europe that have been ruined and plundered in the course of battle. The Nazis, in particular, have long been looting Germany’s neighbours for artworks, which are destined either to become absorbed into the personal collections of high-ranking officers or part of Hitler’s planned Führermuseum. And then there are the Russians, who too are looking for cultural artifacts to claim as ‘war reparations’. Stokes is thus tasked with recruiting several similar-minded academics and experts to form an army unit that will head off to Europe to find the stolen art. The motley group comprises James Granger (Matt Damon), Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), Walter Garfield (John Goodman), Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin), Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) and Sam Epstein (Dimitri Leonidas), none of whom are in fighting form, but all still willing to take up the challenge with very little persuasion required.

As these ‘Monuments Men’ follow whatever leads are at their disposal, breaking up into smaller groups in the process, they encounter numerous hurdles—not just those served up by the enemies, but also their own army commanders on the front lines, who refuse to help them, simply not seeing their quest as important enough. Things heat up even more with the issuance of the Nero decree in March 1945 by Hitler in the face of Germany’s imminent defeat, which orders troops to destroy ‘anything of value’ within German territory, namely infrastructure, so as to prevent their use by the advancing Allied armies. Interpreting this to mean artwork as well, many Nazi leaders now set about razing

the art caches in their possession to the ground and our men must move

fast and smart if they are to rescue these historical assets from certain doom.

What’s missing in The Monuments Men, and what could’ve potentially lifted it some of the way out of its current quagmire given the cumulative talents of its cast, is a sense of camaraderie among the many leads. Unfortunately, the film is laid out in little snippets so each actor appears onscreen only intermittently, hardly enough time to really flesh out any specifics, leaving us with broadly drawn and underdeveloped ‘types’ that we can’t really relate to, and whose antics therefore don’t create any intriguing tension. There’s also a strange lack of credible nuance when it comes to the rest of the characters here—it’s all black and white, noble heroes on one hand, and evil badfellas on the other (cues for which are also offered by Alexandre Desplat’s annoyingly manipulative score)—with little room for realistic ambiguity. And if that weren’t bad enough, there are the constant moral sermons to deal with, most courtesy Clooney, who sees fit to dish out far too many self-important speeches on

how art is the foundation of civilisation and the like, but that are much too vague to have impact.

For the film to have worked, it would’ve needed to get audiences to ask themselves how far they’d be willing to go and what they could risk for the sake of preserving great works of art, the way these men saw fit to do in real life. But minus engaging personalities and backstories that are able to draw us in, and insightful, compelling discussions

on the significance of art—rather than bland platitudes that say nothing much—The Monuments Men ends up little more than a stodgy, overlong history lesson that devalues the remarkable exploits of its original subjects.