May 30 2014 01:27 PM
As World War II is winding down, an allied group, led by a lieutenant/art expert played by George Clooney, is tasked with finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction by Hitler during World War II, or annexation by Russian forces coming from the East.
As neither civilian nor military leadership shares his notion very deeply that victory is hollow without preserving our cultural artifacts, no soldiers of typical military age are committed to his team, so he enlists mostly aging and gimpy professors, curators, and dilettantes who previously were considered unfit for the war effort. John Goodman, Bob Balaban, and Bill Murray are here, but so is Matt Damon, so it ain't all a ragtag team, but it's a pretty ragtag team, even with Private Ryan aboard.
Cate Blanchette appears too. Can't just have a bunch of men in a movie, war movie or no. Checking it out on Wikipedia now, I see that Clooney directed, too. No wonder he gets all the good speeches.