MOVIE CONSENSUS The Coast Guard gets its chance for a heroic movie tribute, but The Guardian does it no justice, borrowing cliche after cliche from other (and better) military branch movies.
MOVIE SYNOPSIS Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher team up in this torch-passing tale of the brave men and women in the Navy Coastguard elite rescue diver unit. more...
MPAA RATING PG-13, for intense sequences of action/peril, brief strong language and some sensuality.
RELEASE DATES Theatrical: Fall 2006 Video: Jan 23, 2007
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The Guardian is so petrified over disrespecting the United States Coast Guard that it stifles itself. Like one of its trainees stuck under water, it can't breathe.
Not that I was expecting much, but I found myself irritated at the recurring basic training clichés that Andrew Davis had floating throughout "The Guardian."
The first hour of The Guardian gives every indication that some sort of contemporary Greek tragedy is about to be played out. And then the film goes right off the rails.
The best way I can describe The Guardian is the Coast Guard version of An Officer and a Gentleman, although I doubt this film will be remembered as fondly.
It's just plain too long. About an hour and a half into it, I began to wonder how it would end, but about two hours into it, I began to wonder when it would end.
Director Andrew Davis and scripter Ron L. Brinkerhoff ... pummel us with the shameless ending we dreaded from the moment the opening credits appeared on the screen.
So old-school it actually has roles for both Clancy Brown and John Heard, The Guardian feels like an assembly-line summer programmer from somewhere circa 1987.
...may be textbook and go overboard with its attempt at supernatural myth-making, but Davis has grounded his film with enough unheralded heroics to make it work.
Take a little of An Officer and a Gentleman and a little Top Gun and throw in some waves and underwater sequences, and you have The Guardian -- only with less charismatic actors, more tame sex scenes, and a lot less energy.
A decade after the commercial and critical flop of Waterworld nearly drowned his career, Kevin Costner is back to sea in The Guardian, and this time his dignity remains afloat.
The Guardian accomplishes what it sets out to do with a reasonable amount of skill, and there's something undeniably admirable about watching men and women push themselves to the limit for only one purpose: to save other people's lives.
That the film doesn't rise above the formulaic is a particular disappointment as these stunningly brave Rescue Swimmers deserve a film as daring as they are.
Impossible tests of endurance: check. Grinding down of cadet's arrogance: check. Phony romance between cadet and sassy babe: check. Fatherly benediction, the newly minted hero bursting with pride: check. Boo-rah!
The Guardian is so petrified over disrespecting the United States Coast Guard that it stifles itself. Like one of its trainees stuck under water, it can't breathe.
Despite the movie being overly long and fairly cliched, it makes a strong showcase for Kevin Costner's seasoned charisma.
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