While millions of American soldiers were fighting with the Allies to save Europe from the Nazis in World War II, a relative handful were involved in a different struggle: to protect and recover tens of thousands of the continent’s greatest art treasures looted by the same enemy.
That fascinating and inspiring, if little-known, historical chapter is recounted in George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men,’’ which brightens the normally bleak February release schedule because it wasn’t ready in time for a planned opening in the December awards-movie corridor.
Except possibly for a superlative supporting performance by Hugh Bonneville of “Downton Abbey,’’ Clooney’s low-key directorial effort is not quite an Oscar-caliber movie, though it’s got a great cast, a worthy theme and plenty of things to reward adult moviegoers.
The Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section was a multinational group of mostly middle-aged museum officials, artists, architects and restorers who volunteered their services when it became clear that Hitler’s elaborate plot to steal famous paintings, sculptures and other masterpieces for his planned personal museum posed just as real a threat to art as the bombing of the continent.
In this somewhat fictionalized version of Robert Edsel’s book using made-up names, the unit is created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the urging of art restorer Frank Stokes (Clooney), who recruits James Granger (Matt Damon), a medieval-art curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as his chief lieutenant.
Damon has the largest role in the ensemble cast, assigned to Paris after the D-Day invasion. James is tasked with winning the confidence of Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), the director of an annex to the Louvre that had been pressed into service to store priceless art the Nazis confiscated mostly from Jewish collectors.
Claire, who secretly worked for the resistance while pretending to collaborate with the Germans, may know where the art the Nazis spirited out of the annex has been hidden, but fears James may want to ship it back to America. (Claire ultimately tries to seduce James in a scene that doesn’t work at all.) Blanchett’s character is based on Rose Valland — who famously recruited French railway workers to sabotage a Nazi attempt to ship some of France’s greatest treasures to Germany just before the liberation of Paris.
That earlier episode was vividly depicted in John Frankenheimer’s thriller “The Train’’ (1965) with Burt Lancaster. Clooney takes pains to avoid comparisons to that earlier classic with his own, far more episodic and sprawling story.
Among the other cast members, Bill Murray plays a famous architect teamed up with a grumpy Jewish officer (Bob Balaban) who seems to be based partly on New York arts impresario Lincoln Kirsten — and they have a great scene where they discover some very famous paintings from the Rothschild collection in a French farmhouse owned by a Nazi collaborator.
Another ace character actor, John Goodman, is cast as a sculptor who comes under fire with a French officer (Jean Dujardin of “The Artist’’) assigned to the unit.
Bonneville is the film’s standout in a small but crucial role as a disgraced English art historian with a drinking problem given a chance at redemption when he’s posted to Belgium to protect a Michelangelo sculpture, the Madonna of Bruges.
Another priceless artwork the film focuses on is a huge and elaborate Flemish altar piece looted from a church. The Monuments Men are in a race with time to find and empty the Nazi hiding places ahead of the Russians — who will treat them as spoils of war rather than returning them to their rightful owners. Clooney (who co-wrote the script as well as directed) mostly delivers exposition and eloquently explains why it’s worth risking men’s lives to save centuries of man’s greatest achievements, which some German leaders were prepared to destroy rather than let fall into Allied hands.
“Monuments Men’’ is a handsome-looking movie, with great period detail and a jaunty score. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to men who gave up comfortable lives and careers to do what they had to do for posterity under incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances.