Review of The Guardian (2006) by Ty P — 16 Jan 2013

From a 2009 blog post - SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Kevin Costner might be the greatest American actor of our day. He has the versatility to be himself in any role he plays, be it as a washed-up baseball player in a Kelly Preston chick flick or as JFK's trusted advisor during the Cuban Missile Crisis or as the legendary Robin of Locksley. He can even be himself in a variety of Western settings, as Crazy Jake or as the grazer with Robert Duval or as a civil war hero who lives among Native Americans and eventually becomes one of them. As if that isn't enough, he can even be himself in futuristic sci-fi dramas as a mariner with gills when the entire world is covered in water or as a reluctant thespian who dons an old US Postal Service uniform to restore hope to the broken-spirited people of America after the government collapses following the Battle of Georgetown. The thing that makes him so great is he usually plays the same character, a tough guy who is a little aloof and gets women to throw themselves at him (like Whitney Houston in The Body Guard). In the few movies where he doesn't play this character, he plays a wild and crazy guy like in Bull Durham. He really is amazing.

For years, I've thought Kevin Costner's greatest movie was either Open Range or The Bodyguard. But over Christmas break, my brother made me watch another Kevin Costner movie that might actually beat either of those movies. Late one night, Steve made my dad and me watch Kevin Costner's The Guardian.

In this dramatic role, Kevin Costner plays a US Coast Guard rescuer who is a legend who saved many people off the coasts of Alaska. The movie begins with him rescuing some people at sea, but when Kevin Costner returns home, his wife is packing up her belongings and getting ready to leave him because he loves his job more than her. He is more concerned about duty than about love. He is broken, but continues to help strangers. When one rescue mission goes disastrously wrong, and Kevin Costner loses his best friend and others in his group, he hits rock bottom. His superior orders him to go become an instructor at the Coast Guard's version of Top Gun school. He doesn't want to go, figuring he is more valuable as a rescuer, but he cannot resist because it was an order.

Kevin Costner arrives at the school as a new crop of hot shot recruits arrives. None is more arrogant than Ashton Kutcher, a star college swimmer who is obnoxious and plans to break all the records. Naturally, all those records were set by Kevin Costner when he attended the school two decades earlier. This mentor-manatee rivalry is the real story of the movie. Kevin Costner employs some unconventional training strategies, leaving some of the other instructors, including Desperate Housewives' Dave Williams, perplexed. In one scene, Kevin Costner tries to teach the recruits the stages of hypothermia by making them stand in a pool of cold water as he pours ice into it. Kevin Costner, ever the man of principle, stands in the water with his students. He gradually gains the respect of his recruits. All of them, that is, but Ashton Kutcher.

Ashton Kutcher is too busy off partying and sleeping with a young, attractive local school teacher that he met at a bar one night on leave. One morning, he forgets to get up in time and arrives late at base. He is sure he will get kicked out, but Kevin Costner lets him stay, recognizing his potential. In another incident, Ashton Kutcher stand up for one of his classmates at a bar when some Navy people start fighting with them. He gets arrested, but Kevin Costner lets him out. Ashton Kutcher remains a punk until Kevin Costner begins to discuss his past with him. It turns out, Ashton Kutcher has a hard time forming relationships because all the members of his high school relay team were killed in a car accident and he felt himself to blame. Kevin Costner helps him get over this by discussing it with him as Ashton Kutcher dramatically cries in Kevin Costner's office and by even going back to the bar and beating the crap out of the Navy bully when the guy bugs him again.

Once this happens, Ashton Kutcher can get over himself and reach his full potential. He and his classmates graduate and are shipped off to their respective posts. Ashton Kutcher is assigned to the same Alaskan port as Kevin Costner. Now they are no longer teacher-student but equals. They rescue some people, but Kevin Costner hesitates during the rescue operation of some kayakers in a cave off the coast as the waves crash in so he decides to retire. He goes to his separated wife, she takes him back by running at him as he walks back to his car (in the traditional woman throwing herself at Kevin Costner scene), and then he decides to just work in the office. Unfortunately, there is a fishing vessel stranded in a storm and Ashton Kutcher's group goes to resuce it. The young hot shot gets stuck in the boat, and Kevin Costner is the only rescuer left on land to go out to rescue him. He does, and just as they are being pulled up into the chopper, the rope is fraying and cannot hold the weight of both of them. In a way only he could, Kevin Costner dramatically cuts himself loose, plummeting to his own death but saving his young protégé Ashton Kutcher in the process. (It was a scene just like Bruce Willis blowing himself up with a nuke on the asteroid so Ben Affleck could survive to play with animal crackers on Liv Tyler's stomach.) The movie ends with a dramatic montage while Ashton Kutcher does a voice-over narration about a legendary "Fisher of Men" who swims below the waves and holds drowning people up long enough for the Coast Guard to arrive. There is no doubt that this Fisher of Men is none other than Kevin Costner, the greatest actor of our day and perhaps even greater than Charlie Chaplin himself.

Like I said, I'm not sure exactly where The Guardian fits into the list of Kevin Costner's best movies. I might have to write a blog in the future where I attempt to rank all of his great films. But in any case, I really recommend this movie. I've given the entire plot to you, but it will not spoil the movie at all. In fact, it might even make it more enjoyable as you admire Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher's craft.