Orbi-Wan Techno

Just came back from a sneak of Kevin Costner/Ashton Kutcher military flick The Guardian, directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive). Costner plays a Coast Guard rescue swimmer who reluctantly becomes a rescue trainer after being the only survivor of a spectacularly disasterous rescue attempt off the coast of Alaska. One of his students, Kutcher, is a deceptively self assured seaman who has personal reasons for wanting to become a rescue swimmer.

The film, while strictly by the numbers and very predictable, is very enjoyable. The at-sea rescues are suspenseful and exciting. The effects for these sequences are very good, and recall some of the storms we've seen on Discovery's The Deadliest Catch.

I was surprised by some of the familiar faces -- Sela Ward and Clancy Brown are always welcome, along with Dule Hill (West Wing, Psych).

I think this will come and go in the theaters, but do a pretty good business on DVD...

dpz301

either way, i am excited to see this.

matome

Wow, for a second I thought this was about the horror movie from the early 90's where some chick turned into a tree and started killing people. Never heard of this one till now.

Robert

I'm guessing the ending is this:



Please tell me I am wrong.

Robert

Talk about cliche tripe! I just guessed that from watching the trailer.

zekeburger1979

I saw the trailer and here's what I think happens in the movie:

Kevin Costner goes out to a sea rescue and almost gets killed.

When he recovers, his superiors take him off active duty and have him teach the young guns.

Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Coster butt heads during the training process, in which we see Ashton hooking up with a girl, but eventually Kevin and Ashton become friends.

Ashton and his fellow trainees get called to a harrowing sea rescue.

Kevin gets sent out there when it's evident that the new guys can't get it done.

Kevin dies, Ashton gets the girl, and we all live happily ever after.

I hope I'm wrong, considering that the movie is from the director of The Fugitive, I'm hoping it's not a formulaic picture, but my guy instinct is telling me otherwise.

Patman

While the film was channeling to be "Top Guardian" at times, I liked Kevin Costner's performance, and tolerated Ashton Kutcher's presence (but he had good chemistry with Melissa Sagemiller, his love interest). The basic storyline (what it takes to make it through the Coast Guard AST school to qualified for rescue missions) borrows the best from the Karate Kid films (and others with similar student-teacher joustabouts), but it does run on far too long, at times I thought I was watching a 4-hour mini-series, while other parts of the film flew by (mainly the training sequences).

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

Just a sidenote: