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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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In Case of Emergency
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by kellie abrahamson
kabrahamson1@aol.com
The men and women of the United States Coast Guard get their day in the Hollywood spotlight with The Guardian, a film which details the self-sacrifice and courage of their elite rescue swimmers. The Guardian is now available to own on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) in an aging United States Coast Guard rescue swimmer whose life takes a sudden and tragic turn when his entire team is killed in a horrific accident. Plagued with visions from that night and dangerously close to losing his nerve at the wrong time, Randall reluctantly agrees to take some time away from the field and do a little teaching at the USCG training facility in Louisiana. There, Randall throws the typical rigorous lesson plan out the window in favor of more extensive tasks to push the recruits to their limits.
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He forces them to tread water for an hour, experience the stages of hypothermia first-hand and spend time at the bottom of a pool to show them what it’s like to go without oxygen for long periods of time. All of these tasks simulate what life as a rescue swimmer is like and most of the newbies wash out. There is one, though, that Randall sees potential in.
Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) was a star swimmer in high school, setting many records and vowing to do the same in the Coast Guard. Dubbed “Goldfish” by Randall, who is unimpressed with Jake’s bravado, the newcomer soon becomes his instructor’s pet project. Randall throws everything he has at the cocky recruit and finds that the kid just keeps coming back for more. The seasoned military man sees Fischer’s talent, but must discover if he is pushing himself because he wants to be the best, or because he truly wants to spend his life saving the lives of others.
The Guardian DVD is not exactly fully-loaded with supplements, but has a few. First is an audio commentary track with director Andrew Davis and writer Ron L. Brinkerhoff. Their insights, while informative, are far from entertaining and probably not worth hearing unless you really, really dug the movie and wanted to know where each and every scene was filmed and who each extra was. In an attempt to appease hypothetical audiences, the filmmakers decided to shoot an alternate ending in case the initial screenings went bad. The kinder, gentler ending can be found on the disc and after one viewing, one is glad they went the other way. Four deleted scenes, also best left out of the final product, are available for viewing with or without commentary from Davis and Brinkerhoff. The first of two featurettes is next. Davis and some of the cast share their experiences and effectively pat each other on the backs in “The Guardian: Making Waves”. Here, they discuss the challenges they faced during the production, the casting of the leads and the assistance they received from the USCG. And, just to prove the Coast Guard love, the second featurette is a tribute just to them. “Unsung Heroes: So Others May Live” gives us a look at the lives of these service men and women through their eyes and the eyes of their loved ones. The five-minute accolade touches on the USCG’s efforts during Hurricane Katrina and shows footage from actual rescues.
The Guardian is not a great movie. It’s cliché from start to finish, it has some truly terrible dialogue and, I’m sorry, but Ashton Kutcher is just not military material. I never for a second bought his character, which is not to say the acting was bad but that the guy was simply miscast. Kutcher is not hardcore enough to play a military man. I buy him as the goofy boyfriend. I buy him as the scruffy college guy who time travels to fix the problems in his life. I just can’t, with a straight face, hear Kutcher shouting “HOOAH!” for 136 minutes. It didn’t seem natural at all. The length of the film was also a major problem. It ran way too long and with some tighter editing and the removal of the same tired scenes we’ve seen in about fifty other military movies, The Guardian could have done more to hold my attention. As it was, midway through I was just dying to do a crossword puzzle to pass the time until something, anything interesting happens.
While there were certainly some errors in judgment when it came to executing the film, the idea behind The Guardian is a good one. The Coast Guard does not get the respect or acknowledgement it deserves and any recognition of these men and women is a good thing. I only wish that the film itself was worthy of representing their good work.
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