MIT Lecture Series Committee

April 29, 2014

Rated PG-13
118 minutes

view trailer

format: watermarked pre-release DVD

The Monuments Men (2014)

FREE Admission, sponsored by the MIT Libraries for National Preservation Week!

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys -- seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 -- possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements. From director George Clooney, the film stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. The screenplay is by George Clooney & Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Produced by Grant Heslov and George Clooney. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

It is true. It is history. As a film, it is riveting, suspenseful, harrowing and exciting, and somehow, it also manages to be something rare among war pictures -- a big-scale entertainment.
      -- Rex Reed, New York Observer. Read this review.