This isn’t your typical war movie.

Sure, men are in uniform, carry guns and shoot every once in a while, but this storyline focuses on something completely different: art from around the world.

“The Monuments Men,” based on the non-fiction book by Robert Edsel and directed by and starring George Clooney, is set in 1943 in the middle of World War II. Frank Stokes (George Clooney) discovers that while the Nazis are pursuing their goal of world domination, they are stealing every work of art from every country they destroy in order to fill the Führer’s Museum, a building Hitler has designed to store every piece of ancient and modern art in the world.

Stokes convinces Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt that victory over Hitler and his army will have little meaning if every work of art is stolen and destroyed in the process. Roosevelt gives him permission to assemble a group of six men whose primary job will be to find the stolen pieces of art and return them to their rightful owners. Stokes gathers men who are versed in the arts, such as a Director of Arts at an American university and a curator of medieval art at the Met, the museum of art in New York City.

The curator of medieval art at the Met, James Granger (Matt Damon) finds and befriends Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), a curator of art at a gallery in France, who has seen Nazi officers organize the stealing of art pieces and watched as the Nazis transported all of the art in her gallery to Germany.

Granger discovers vital information from Simone and joins the other five men in Germany as they travel around to find as much art as possible. They desperately look for the altarpiece from Ghent and Michelangelo’s sculpture of the Madonna and child.

The whole movie is centered around the idea that art is a way of life. It represents people’s history and culture and that if art is destroyed, it is like the people who make up the history and culture of countries never existed.

The story line of the movie flows smoothly. It often flips back and forth between scenes involving Granger and Simone and scenes involving the five other men, but it does this well and without awkward transitions.

Although the plot line does focus on art, you don’t have to know much about art to enjoy it. I’ve never taken art history nor do I pay close attention to art lectures in my history classes, and I was still able to follow the plot easily. The movie doesn’t explain the significance of the art (which would make it feel more like an art history class), but instead focuses on the men’s emotions and attachments to the art.

I found it admirable that Clooney and Grant Heslov, the two writers of the screenplay, inserted lighthearted moments in the movie but also included scenes that show the effects of war and tug at the audience members’ heartstrings.

For example, when the six men are going through training before they travel into war-torn areas, Walter Garfield (John Goodman) is terrified to find out they use real bullets while training. In other scenes, Granger is made fun of endlessly for his awful French.

In another scene, Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) receives a record of a message from his family around Christmas time. It is played over the loud speaker and the audience watches as Campbell closes his eyes and listens to his family singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Through the course of the movie, the group of men drop from six to four, as both Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) and Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) die. Besides these two instances of death, the Monuments Men seemed to be in a separate bubble, protected from all other harm. They are in enemy territory, yet they aren’t in as much danger as they would be in reality.

Any drama-filled and action-packed movie such as this one has a good score. This score fit the scenes very well and the music was familiar enough that I came out of the theater humming along to one of the tunes from the movie.

Entertainment Weekly gave “The Monuments Men” a C-, labeling it as a “bizarre failure.” I believe this movie keeps you sitting on the edge of your seat, makes you laugh, cry and shows you the power of art.

For those who like history or find World War II history interesting, this movie is a must-see.