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This 1992 crowd pleaser made almost as much money for Whitney Houston as its chart-busting soundtrack. A high-wattage star vehicle as only Hollywood can make,
The Bodyguard stars Houston as a pop-music diva (now
there's a stretch) and Kevin Costner as the stern bodyguard who is assigned to protect her after the singer receives some nasty death threats. Pop star and bodyguard don't hit it off at first, but they wear down each others' defenses, and before long Houston is baring her tonsils with a rousing rendition of the Dolly Parton chestnut "I Will Always Love You." The film, written by Lawrence Kasden, was originally intended for Steve McQueen, but the script languished for years before Houston took an interest in the project. A proposed sequel would potentially have starred Costner and Princess Diana, until Diana's tragic death precluded that possibility.
--Jeff Shannon
According to the screenwriter (and co-producer), Lawrence Kasdan, the script for this picture was written in 1975 as a possible vehicle for Steve McQueen. In lieu of McQueen, Kevin Costner plays the title character, a retired Secret Service man who is hired to protect a famous singer (played by Whitney Houston). Costner sports a fuzzy crewcut that's more travesty than homage, and he's very grim; he looks as if he were still troubled by inconsistencies in the Warren Commission report. Houston, in a variety of glitzy costumes, belts a few forgettable songs for the soundtrack album and flings herself repeatedly at the taciturn hero, begging him for both sex and manly state-of-the-art security. The movie, directed by Mick Jackson, is a formulaic and ruinously long thriller that might have been more fun if its absurdities had been played as high camp. (The climax is an assassination attempt at the Oscar ceremony.) It is, perhaps, a sign of progress that a big-budget commercial picture like this can feature a romance between a white man and a black woman without ever making the racial difference an issue. It would be a more encouraging sign if the movie were any good. Also with Michele Lamar Richards and Gary Kemp. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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