Film Reviews

The Guardian

• Rating:
• Director: Andrew Davis
• Starring: Ashton Kutcher
• Details: US / 136mins (12A).

High Concept - a phrase used by producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson in the '80s that allowed a movie to be summed up in one sentence, giving the audience an immediate idea of what the film is like and what to expect (Alien: Jaws in space, Days Of Thunder: Top Gun in cars).Applying this idea, The Guardian can be summed up as Top Gun with flippers, but it also has a little An Officer And A Gentlemen, Backdraft and Armageddon thrown into mix, too. Costner plays Ben Randall, an aging USCG rescue swimmer whose team were killed on a disastrous mission. Forced to take a job as an instructor in a training facility, Randall's tough, regimental training scheme fails half the class. However, there is one man with a lot of potential if he only pushes himself hard enough - Jake Fischer (Kutcher).The movie centres around the relationship between these two men and the connection they have at a fundamental level. There is no reason in the world to see The Guardian as you've already seen this movie in so many others, recycling every mentor/student movie of the last 30 years. Costner, at last, acts his age and is certainly the strongest element of this redundant movie; his hard-talking instructor is up there with Louis Gossett Jnr. Kutcher isn't bad either as the petulant trainee, and there are a few daring rescue scenes, but there is nothing fresh or original in The Guardian.

Review by Gavin Burke