Review of The Bodyguard (1992) by Martin D — 09 Mar 2010

Hollywood has a tendency to push out films that have only one purpose and one purpose only, to make the studio boatloads of money, films like Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, both of which have no solid production values to them at all and serve only as moneymakers for Paramount. Mick Jackson and Lawrence Kasdan's"The Bodyguard" Is the prime example of Hollywood propaganda, when this film was released it quickly became one of the highest grossing films for 1992 and helped further the career of Whitney Houston. Nevertheless, while it is interesting to see Houston onscreen and off the stage this film does nothing to enhance her skills as an actor. It instead brings her down to the level of soap opera star and she brings her leading man Kevin Costner right down with her, sadly for Costner it was the beginning of a long stretch of bad movies for a once great actor. "The Bodyguard" is the kind of film that gets you all worked up to only set you up for more disappointment in the end.

Mick Jackson & Lawrence Kasdan's "The Bodyguard" starts out with a promising opening and beginning that leads you to believe that this film will be a suspense packed romantic thriller. As the film progresses your hopeful desires for a great movie going experience start to deteriorate with the story and the plot. This film when it came out was nothing more than propaganda for Whitney Houston. It's a film I tentatively call "The Twilight of 1992" as that film and this one are nothing more than shallow money makers that only serve to capitalize on the popularity of there singer, in The Bodyguard's case, and in Twilight's case the source material. "The Bodyguard" is the worst kind of movie, it gets your hopes up only to have them come crashing down in the end. If it had a better screenplay, better actors, and a far more superior director this cliché "romantic thriller" could have been a memorable and even great film, but sadly it settles too soon for extremely poor to even try to be good. "The Bodyguard" lacks the refined touch of a director who knows his way around the camera and if there were a man, even far superior to Mick Jackson this film would have been the highlight of 1992, Instead of the film that suckered millions.

Kevin Costner gives one of the worst performances of his career as Steve McQueen rip off Frank Farmer, Costner is not the type you would classify as the tough person he is more of the official type someone who plays by the rules. Here Costner has only rule is" listen to him and you'll live" which works out for the most part for him but the poor screenplay and terrible direction lowers Costner to the level of a Soap star in a low class motion picture. Whitney Houston has all the talent for being a superstar singer but has no talent when it comes to being an actress, he emotions are all over the place, her dramatic timing is way off and even when she is just speaking the lines she chews every single word. Houston tries, but only for a minute to be a real actor; sadly Houston is a complete and utter eyesore. The rest of the cast I must commend for trying there hardest but sadly, they too fall under the poor script and direction only to come out as uneven and out of place.

"The Bodyguard" is neither enjoyable or well made it's just a film that is a new car without any brakes that takes off at a 100 miles an hour only to crash off the cliff to the murky waters below. It lacks a refined touch and a labor of love, it use parts from better films like it and causes what could have been a good Costner-Houston vehicle to be a 2 hour cringe fest.