Guy: “You can rescue me anytime.” Girl: “You, I might just let drown.”
Rambunctious repartees on water are aplenty in The Guardian – director Andrew Davis’ (The Fugitive, A Perfect Murder) film about the high-tide lives of Coast Guard rescue swimmers. The basic plot: two hours of disorganized mess akin to a bad episode of That ’70s Show mixed with a recruitment video. Trust me, the zippy aquatic jaunts won’t be enough to save you from hating your Guardian experience.
Guardian stars Kevin Costner as Ben Randall, a hardened, top-notch Guard swimmer from Alaska with a record number of life saves under his belt and salt water in his veins. After a tragic rescue accident – of which he was a part – kills several people, including his best friend and fellow Guardsman, Randall is plucked from the ocean and tossed into the kiddie pool, forced to replace rescuing with teaching wannabe waterboys at the Guard’s infamously intense “A” School.
It’s at the “A” school where Randall meets Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher), a student who is cocky to the point of irritation. We first see Fischer in a pair of polished Aviators and a sleek, well-fitted blue sweater, and his opening line is just as obnoxious: “That guy who holds all those records – is he still alive? I just wanted to let him know I’m about to knock his name off that board.”
As you can probably predict, the two get along like oil and water. Fischer, a high-school swim champ, doesn’t want to give Randall the respect he’s due. Randall, with his years of experience and training, doesn’t think Fischer knows what the Guard is all about. After battling each others’ wits (Randall sprays Fischer with a hose while he treads water for an hour and soaks him in ice water to the point of hypothermia; Fischer smart-mouths in class and breaks Randall’s swimming records), they find out they’re more alike than they thought they were and ultimately face the real waters together. What a surprise.
Boring, you say? Yes, very much so, until the movie throws you a surprise ending that is more offensive than appropriate. Did it have to happen, or does it fit with the story? No. But does the ending add dramatic effect? Yes. And unfortunately, that’s about all the justification we get; it’s an obvious pull at our heartstrings pulled off with zero tact and horrible dialogue.
It’s the bad writing and sitcom-esque jokes that plague The Guardian to the point that Costner even struggles to make the film believable. He’s the only character you’ll like, but even his solid attempts at acting are marred by awful one-liners and overt cheesiness. Kutcher tries – even reverting to some slightly believable tear-shedding – to prove he can be both serious and funny, but fails at being multidimensional.
With the focus on Costner and Kutcher, secondary character development – and subplots – get swept under the rug. We meet Hodge (Brian Geraghty, Jarhead), the two-time flunkee found in every armed-forces movie, and Randall’s wife, Helen Randall (Sela Ward of TV’s House M.D.), but don’t see enough to judge her. The same treatment is given to Kutcher’s love interest, Melissa Sagemiller (Get Over It), who’s focused on so infrequently that – hell, I can’t even remember her character’s name. And when we finally find out why Ashton’s really at swim school (a reason that’s unforgivably outlandish), it’s quickly brushed over. It’s substance for substance, and no more.
But The Guardian does manage to stay afloat at times. Training scenes are intense and elaborate, and the ocean-rescue scenes are vivid and realistic – one scene in which Randall loses a teenage boy he’s trying to save will stay with you long after the tide goes out.
Bottom line: Protect yourself from The Guardian, you’ll get stuck in more than deep water.
Movie: The Guardian | Verdict: 1 star
Contact reporter Raquel Christie at christiedbk@gmail.com.
