2 Stars (out of four)
There is no secret that Hitler had grand plans for his thousand-year-reich. By 1940, they were all falling apart. One of those plans from the failed little artist was to rip off all the art in Europe and put it in his grand Fuhrer Museum that was to be built in Austria. He went around Europe looting every museum, church and private collector in order to obtain pieces both for this museum and for the private collections of his cronies. So, the Americans and British put together an odd platoon of men who were artists and historians to get the art back when they hear Hitler is destroying most of it. The idea is to find the art and restore it to its rightful owners. To add to the race, the Soviets have their own group, the Trophy Brigade, who are on the same mission, but in their case, to take it back to Russia as spoils of war.
So, an interesting story, but badly told. First, it has been pointed out by critics that the movie is a bunch of clichés. This is kind of true. All the men are older, so they have the requisite basic training scenes of mirth, old men doing young men jobs, lamenting they are too old for this, etc, etc, etc. While the jokes are fine and light, they are trite and played out. You see much the same type of thing in Space Cowboys, Armageddon, or even Stripes. But the most glaring problem to me is that the movie appears to suffer from a lot of post-production cuts. If that is not the case, there is absolutely no excuse for the disjointed story and ham-fisted sentimentality. I could not connect with any character. There was nothing particularly interesting about any of them. Since most were A-list stars, it seems they had to get equal screen time or something, but it seems that they spent so much time on the group, we could not sympathize with anyone. Ocean's Eleven, another ensemble picture with two of the stars returning in this one was much more coherent and fun. There are some real moments; my favorite being when one of them gets a record from home where his daughter and grandchildren sing I'll Be Home For Christmas. But most of the rest of the moments feel fake or shoehorned on and have no impact at all. They don't feel real. Another interesting criticism I happen to agree with was pointed out by a friend of mine. She noted that the whole point of the mission was to return stolen art or else Western Civilization would fall apart because no one in the future would see these precious treasures and be inspired. There would be nothing to connect us to our past. The issue she pointed out was that a lot of these pieces were stolen from private collectors. While the crime was horrifying in its scale, this art was mostly in private collections that the general public would never see. Outside of the laudible mission to right a great wrong, that is robbery on a grand scale, how does this protect the past as was the original intent of the mission, to restore our past to future generations? Most of this art would be rightfully restored to their proper owners and then never seen again, thereby negating the original premise of the mission. In any case, I really wanted the movie to be good, and it is merely okay. It was fine, but a big letdown.
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