The Guardian
Let's have no groaning: I went to see Andrew Davis's latest picture, The Guardian, yesterday, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. The beginning and the end are terrifying, with frantic scenes of mayday ("m'aidez!") that involve ships foundering in gigantic swells while helicopters hover overhead. Quite stomach-turning. In between the turbulent moments lies a very fine mentoring story, in which a bruised old champion tames and befriends a cocky young winner.
The Guardian is about a Coast Guard "swimmer" - someone who gets dropped from a helicopter to play lifeguard in rough seas. In this case, the Bering Sea. Stationed on Kodiak Island, Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) hits a very rough patch, and is transferred, temporarily, to a sunnier venue where he is assigned to train an incoming class of swimmers. of which the star is Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher - who still doesn't look old enough to have been married to Demi Moore for longer than a minute, maybe). Because Jake is full of himself and not a team player, it takes no time at all for him and Randall to get some really irritated alpha-male static buzzing. The strange thing is that this is not irritating. And the reason for that, I think, is that this is, after all, the Coast Guard, where the idea is to save lives, not to extinguish them. (The Guardian demonstrates that the Coast Guard ought to be a haven for jocky pacifists - but I guess that they're never in great supply.) The opening scenes of the movie have made it clear that Jake has really got to learn what Randall has to teach him in order to be an effective swimmer, and the much of the interest lies in Kevin Costner's nuanced portrayal of a teacher struggling to find a way to make contact with the boy.
Although long, The Guardian didn't strike me as having any longueurs. Sela Ward, Melissa Sagemiller, Bonnie Bramlet, Clancy Brown, Neal McDonough, and John Heard provide an intelligent and engaged supporting cast. Kevin Geraghty is particularly fine as a member of the class who has to overcome his tendency to panic when attacked by a panicking victim.
Thanks to Mr Davis's eloquent framing scenes, the sparkling swimming pools used in the training course never overwrite our recollection of the vast and violent opacity of the sea.
