For a while it seemed like George Clooney was his generation’s heir apparent to Cary Grant, a bona fide movie star whose limited range is rendered irrelevant by his irrepressible charisma. And then he started directing films and, at least out of the gate things seemed momentarily more interesting. His 2002 directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, came on breezy but grounded, certainly the most approachable take on a Charlie Kaufman screenplay ever mounted. And 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck, his tribute to the mandarin days of television news, was at least palpably committed to lionizing Eisenhower-era liberal resistance. In other words, he looked to become the heir apparent to Robert Redford, auteur.

It didn’t last. The title of Clooney’s The Monuments Men, just about sums it up. His obsession with what he perceives as the achievements and moral clarity of those (read: Americans) who lived...