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The
Guardian
You know ‘em, you love ‘em. Take the gruff old
guy who knows everything, pair him with the cocky young
guy. Give ‘em a mildly tragic past, and stick them
together in a training situation, and you’ve got a
plot line that’s been rehashed dozens of times for
Hollywood.
But
instead of this being a tale of the police force, or of
firefighters, or the FBI, this is a tale of the military.
“How is that different” you ask? Because, this
time, it’s the rarely seen Coast Guard that brings
us our buddy training flick, in the form of The Guardian.
It tells
the tale of Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Ben Randall (Kevin
Costner), a hardened veteran who’s turned down promotions
to desk jobs (and lost his wife in the process) to stay
in the frigid waters of the Alaskan seas. After a freak
accident, his entire team dies, leaving him traumatized.
His commanding officer gives him a choice: Resign, or teach
the next batch of swimmers everything you know while taking
time to recover.
Randall
decides to teach, and proceeds to turn the training program
upside down. One of the students suffering through the Ben
Randall School of Rescue Swimming is Jake Fisher (Ashton
Kutcher), a hotshot swim champ determined to show off his
skills, in an attempt to move past a tragic past of his
own. Through the weeks, Randall molds the ever smaller group,
but focuses on Fisher, who ends up following Randall back
to the Kodiak, and learning the true meaning of “So
Others May Live.”
We’re
so used to seeing the Marines, Navy, Air Force, etc end
up on the big screen, that these days it doesn’t even
make us bat an eye. The fact that Hollywood produced a movie
focusing on the most forgotten of the 5 (yes, there are
five) branches of the military, the United States Coast
Guard, caught my attention, and felt like a tiny breeze
hinting at fresh air. And these aren’t a bunch of
wimps, either. While the US Coast Guard may not be the battle
trained bravos that the rest of the military outfits are,
USCG rescue swimmers, at least in this movie, go through
hell to save others, even when everyone else has given up.
For
the genre of “training” movie, this wasn’t
that bad. It’s pretty predictable, with all of the
military stubbornness ingrained in the lead characters,
and with the added adjustments to make it flow with the
Coast Guard theme.
As Ben
Randall, Costner is at his stoic best. This isn’t
a ground-breaking performance for him, and because of the
watery theme surrounding this film, I kept thinking back
to his character in Message in a Bottle. They’re
very similar, in several ways that I won’t mention,
to avoid spoiling the film. And I won’t even talk
about Waterworld, except to say that this is better.
Which isn’t hard.
Kutcher
manages to brush off a little bit more of the goofball,
gotta-love-me stereotype that he’s been stuck with,
and while he still comes off as brash and cocky, part of
that is the character he plays, and not really him. Instead
of seeing a prankster making money off of his good looks,
I see a developing young man, and a cocky Coast Guard recruit
battling past demons to make himself the best. Sadly, while
the role of Fisher is a type of breaking out for Kutcher,
this didn’t have enough depth to completely rid him
of his typecasting.
Costner
and Kutcher do work together in these roles quite well though,
and their chemistry was perfect as student and teacher,
especially during a bar room brawl between the Coast Guard
and the Navy types.
Probably
some of the most interesting stuff in The Guardian
was the training and rescuing itself. I’m not sure
how accurately the film depicts actual rescue swimmer training,
but if this is anywhere close, those guys go through hell
in training, just to go through hell in real life rescues.
I know boot camp is supposed to be a rough place, but throw
in some of the most strenuous swimming and water exercises
you can think of, and that might be a sliver of what these
recruits go through. In one particular scene, we get to
see the whole class shivering in a small pool full of ice
water, to learn about hypothermia. I had to put on my jacket,
it was that cold to watch.
As for
the rescue scenes themselves, they’re probably the
most exciting part of the film. The idea of jumping out
of a helicopter into storm tossed waters sounds insane to
me, but not only do these guys do it, they do it and save
other people while they’re at it. Director Andrew
Davis knows a thing or two about action sequences (I think
The Fugitive had one or two…) and the helicopter
drops and rescues were exiting, if Hollywood infused, evidence
of the amazing save the USCG is capable of.
The
Guardian is a great film for the Coast Guard, which
hasn’t had a film produced about it in almost 50 years.
It’s sure to put stars in not a few young swimmers
eyes (the guy sitting next to me actually about to head
to A-school notwithstanding), but as a film for the general
masses, it’s a mediocre, if enjoyable, rewash of a
long standing plot. Just throw in a few new faces, and some
cold water.
My advice:
Wait a few months, and curl up with a blanket at home to
watch it.
Rating:
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