The core argument of The Monuments Men is one that is provocative in the abstract, though less than compelling as the driving force for a lavishly produced war drama. In telling the true story of art scholars who went to the European Front to find, identify and protect great works of art stolen by the Nazis, co-star, co-writer and director George Clooney reframes the conflict as not just being between conflicting ideologies. It was also a battle for history, and the Nazi effort to steal art - and, later in the war, to destroy it - was an attempt to rewrite the very history of the world. In that context, the efforts of the Monuments Men to protect the past seem important, even noble, rather than something flip or insubstantial when compared to the death happening around them.