08/02/2014 - Directed by and starring George Clooney and with an all-star cast, the film was presented over the weekend in competition at the Berlinale

One of the uncontested main attractions of day three of the Berlinale thanks to an all star-cast headed by George Clooney, also the film’s director and producer, Monuments Men [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] is based on an intriguing true story. 

In 1943, the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives group, made up of 350 intellectuals, curators and artists from 13 different countries, was created with support from the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt and General Eisenhower with the objective of protecting and restoring pieces of art put at risk by bombings, and recuperating masterpieces stolen by the Nazis.

In his fifth time behind the camera, Clooney, together with writer-producer Grant Heslov, adapted philanthropist Robert M. Edsel’s novel Monuments Men. Heroic allies, Nazi thieves combine in what becomes the greatest and hardest treasure hunt inside occupied Europe. Straight after Normandy’s d-day, Hitler orders for all Nazi art to not be given to the enemy, meaning that what cannot be transported is to be destroyed. 

Frank Strokes (Clooney), a great art historian, finds support from the American government for a heroic mission to save humankind’s cultural and artistic heritage. Strokes gathers a small group of art experts rather than warriors (Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and French Jean Dujardin), with whom he travels to France, Belgium and Germany. There, they will have to juggle Nazi enemies and disinterested guards of culture to reach their goals.

Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett), a French woman working for SS generals will play a crucial role in the story, as she takes secret note of where various pieces of art are destined to end up.

For all the best and the worst reasons, Monuments Men is the perfect mainstream Hollywood production with a cast of immaculate professionals, a screenplay, which combines drama, entertainment and heroism, a magniloquent original score, a big post-production and a plot which seamlessly goes through the motions without any big surprises. 

Filmed in Germany (in Berlin and in a Potsdam studio) and in England, the film was produced by Clooney and Heslov for their Smokehouse Production in coproduction with British Obelisk Productions Ltd and German Studio Babelsberg. Global sales will be taken care of by Fox2000/Columbia Pictures.

The film will come out in Italy on February 13 with 20th Century Fox. 

(Translated from Italian)