Customer Reviews

The Guardian

5 star:		(92)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

There are many dangers for being a member of the Coast Guard. Taken to the icy waters of the Bering Strait off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska, the possibilities of danger with choppy waves, hypothermia, and broken vessels or rocky caves rise exponentially. Dreadful decisions meet the rescuer at every opportunity to save lives: Who can and should be saved? Who cannot be? As in any lifesaving seminar, the rescuer must stay alive to be able to save others. Hazardous conditions and low pay are part and parcel of the harrowing life of heroes. These factors set up the premise of a promising movie.

'The Guardian' shows us these possibilities with Ben Randall (Kevin Costner), a maverick, but aging senior chief who is still on top of his form. At the beginning we find him challenged by a rescue that runs out the clock and leaves his colleagues in harm's way. The descending rescue 'copter runs into a wave that sends it reeling into the sea where it explodes. The trajectory of the debacle sends Randall's best friend out at sea, but even his best efforts can't save him. Randall recovers, but he remains haunted by the memory of this recent disaster that left him impotent to save the others. His superior reassigns him to train recruits. He resists, but his senior officer is wise enough to know that trauma leaves even the best rescuers tentative until time can heal the inner wounds.

At the training academy, Randall becomes the best asset, throwing away the text book and always throwing his recruits into the thick of training with some grueling situations. Here he comes upon a smug, but promising Ivy League recruit, Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher), properly nicknamed "Goldfish" for his smimming prowess and silver spoon sensibilities. The friction between instructor and recruit is not all that different than movies we've seen before, especially 'An Officer and a Gentleman,' but the bond they develop is both strong and very different. They discover they have much in common, including an aptitude to break swimming records and a past that haunts each protagonist in a similar fashion. Tough Randall has some strong words that quickly silence even the most brazen of his potential crew, especially the cocky Fischer. A series of mishaps and Randall's constant browbeating do peel the layers off Fischer's self-centered shell, and we finally see both men's vulnerability. The relationship is the focal point of the movie, for Fischer brings vitality and enthusiasm, but he needs Randall's sage and seasoned experience. The rest of the movie finds them friends, but both have their mettle tested in a series of events that show them as the best they can be... Both, too, are in need of healing and forgiveness, while they try to forge a final bond with the women they love.

As with most adventure movies nowadays, there are able panoramic sea scenes, some of which are reminiscent of 'The Perfect Storm'. The story and the way it weaves through danger, relationships, and training has an emotional undertow that isn't entirely different than 'The Horse Whisperer'. And, though many comparisons can be made to other movies, the sum of 'The Guardian's parts is assembled in a unique way. Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher keep the drama afloat with focused performances that create memorable characters. Particularly, Kutcher delivers a genuine performance as a cocky recruit who has great pain and insecurity bubbling below the surface. The dialogue is above most adventure movies with some particularly poignant lines for Costner. 'The Guardian' delivers heroism and inspiration in a film that nearly steered a course into a wreck of sentimentality awash with cliches and stereotypes.

Despite mediocre reviews and having struggled through An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun I decided to watch The Guardian with every expectation that I would not make it through the movie... I am glad that I went, one of the best movies I've seen in awhile. It's easy to find fault in any movie and The Guardian is no exception; the rescue scenes are bigger than life which should be expected in a military/disaster movie; but the overconfident and somewhat arrogant trainee (Ashton Kutcher) is believable at his age, and Kevin Costner was at his best since the late 80's (The Untouchables & No Way Out). Despite my surprise when learning that my college age children watched The Guardian, I was even more astonished that they discussed aspects of this movie - Service, sacrifice, relationships, and perseverance. In an office where I very rarely see 7 thumbs up; The Guardian got the grade.

I agree with reviews below that Kevin Costner has definitely matured as an actor and has found that comfortable place of depth and poingancy in his acting while still keeping his Americana charm. But most of his boyish boisterousness is out the window and replaced by steadfast masculine experience. He's much better this way.

Ashton Kutcher does a surprisingly good job in this film and plays his role well and slightly understated. As most military movies typically have that one cocky rogue character, Ashton's Jake Fische is no different. However, his interpretation was by far the most realistic. There's no over the top cockiness, but more of a concerted effort to meet and beat the Senior Chief's expectations and take some more on. What this movie does get right is the very realistic tone between instructor and trainee that you would see in a military training class today. None of that over dramatization of the military. For that I give Costner and Kutcher, two thumbs up.

Lots of interestingly appreciative training scenes of what the students go through in "A" school: training, teamwork exercises, drills, etc.
A movie well done and worth watching. The 2 hours, 20 minutes will fly by.

As a retired Coast Guardsman, I watched the movie with great anticipation-hoping that they would "get it right" and night just have another hollywood production. After experiencing 30 years of service and seeing a lot of what is portrayed in the movie, I believe they have. Even though others may not think the the intertwined love story is necessary, I believe that it adds a sense of realism and personal sacrifice to the storyline. These are situations that are faced not only by rescue swimmers, who may have the most physically challenging job in the Guard, but by every person in the Coast Guard who has every had to go out in rough seas, board boats, coduct rescues at sea, do drug interdiction or a myriad of other taskings in less than ideal conditions. The movie does an excellent job exposing those who are are unaware to one aspect of the Coast Guard mission. I hope it makes them that much more aware of the sacrifice freely given on a daily basis in the saving of lives and property, the safeguarding of US freedoms and interests, and the effect it has on the personnel involved.

Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) is a rarity in the Coast Guard. Even though he's over 40, he's still in the field serving as a rescue swimmer. Whenever the sea near his base in Kodiak, Alaska gets rough, he's the one who jumps out of the helicopter and rescues those who have fallen overboard. And he's one of the best at what he does, with an impressive record or saves against overwhelming odds.

He's hit a rough patch, however. His wife (Sela Ward) has left him and his entire crew was killed in an accident while they were trying to rescue the survivor of a shipwreck. In a move to help him recover emotionally, he's temporarily reassigned to "A" School, where the Coast Guard trains rescue swimmers.

And that's why Ben is on hand when Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) enters the program. He's a high school swimming star who has turned down Ivy League scholarships to become a rescue swimmer. On the first day, he brags that he will beat all of Randall's old records.

Obviously, Jake has a problem with arrogance. Ben doesn't give him a break but spends all his time picking on his star student. Will Jake stand up to the pressure?

Given the previews and the plot of this movie, I'm sure it will surprise very few people when I describe it as formulaic. There were a couple surprises along the way, but for the most part, things unfolded exactly as I expected then to.

So, for a movie like this to succeed, it must rely on characters and actors. Here, the movie hits a home run. Both Ben and Jake are deeply flawed men who are struggling to maintain or regain their pride. Even Jake, who comes across as arrogant much of the time, has a truly compassionate side that surfaces as well. And Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher are excellent in their rolls. They balance the emotional and comedic scenes expertly. The movie focuses on these two characters, and the rest of them are underdeveloped as a result, but that's a minor complaint.

The movie is over two hours, but I was engrossed the entire time. The beginning and climax features some truly angry seas, and those special effects were awesome.

Even though the plot isn't the most original out there, the movie is still very entertaining and well worth seeing. I was moved and am very glad I saw it.

First, as a movie watcher who rarely likes what hits the screen these days, I truly enjoyed this film. True, it would have been better 15 minutes shorter, but it wasn't so long as to really bother me. I think the love interest for Kutcher was unneccessary. But the movie held my attention and interest and I left the theater thinking, "Man, that was good."

Now, as one of the lucky people that have one of those cool Coast Guard jobs, (a fact that does create some bias) I was suprised by just how close to reality the action stayed. There were plenty of "hollywood" moments, but many of them were necessary. I wont bother to explain them all, but the operations center of most air stations is a desk with a couple of phones. There are video monitors in some of them, but they play movies and football games...no live video feeds from the scene...sorry.

The rescue scenes are very realistic, and the school scenes are not too out-of-line with the actual training. (warning: punch an instructor in the face during an in water test and he will NOT hug you later. Get thrown in jail for being drunk and disorderly and you WILL get kicked out) The story didn't show the sometimes months of boredom between rescues or the excitement of a six hour flare sighting search called in by a drunk on the fourth of july from a hotel room...but who would pay to see that?

All in all, I think many of us in the service are proud of the film and liked it very much.

The extras on the DVD are worth the price alone. Again, I'm biased.
The Guardian is a film worth owning.

Good to see Kevin Costner back in a hero role. I liked this movie a lot, with the exception of the "supernatural" part of the ending, which I thought was a bit strange, considering the rest of the movie was a straight-forward look at the life of rescue swimmers in the Coast Guard.

To those people who say that this film is predictable and formulaic, what else would you do with it? Do you want aliens to invade or have them fighting a sea monster, what?? The Coast Guard was with them every step of the way in making this film and making it sure it was authentic. There were several actual CG guys in the film. It's a military film, folks, meant to depict what these men and women go through every day, and I think it does that better than any other film of its type. They didn't go into Delta Force territory and try to make their male characters one-dimensional macho cardboard cutouts. They spend a lot of this movie showing the emotional toll this takes not only on the CG personnel themselves but on their relationships. Thank goodness for that! I was also happy, as a 50-ish woman, to see Costner paired with Sela Ward instead of a 20-something young thing (despite the fact he's married to one in real life, I guess!) and I could sympathize with the depiction of his character's sadness at seeing his physical body unable to do what it could do at 19.

If you want Shakespeare go watch a different movie. If you want something unpredictable go watch Memento or The Prestige. But if you want to see a movie that faithfully depicts what it takes to be one of the heroes of the Coast Guard, then see this film. And make sure to check out the special features.

We all know Full Metal Jacket...Kubrick's classic, brutal depiction of Marines going to war in Vietnam from boot camp to battle. The Guardian is Andrew Davis' (1993's The Fugitive) much lighter look at what recruits in the Coast Guard who apply to be Rescue Swimmers might go through while attempting to pass the Rescue Swimmer test.

It's also the story of an instructor (Kevin Costner) that was the best Rescue Swimmer in the business, but reluctantly accepted a teaching job at the Coast Guard Academy.

The movie is way more training than I'd have preferred. But there's a good story. There's suspense. And importantly it's fairly believable. The Guardian kind of falls apart towards the end with a sadly predictable ending.

One thing that The Guardian does for sure is show you that the Coast Guard is highly underrated. A memorable quote from the movie that puts it in perspective: "When hurricanes ground the United States Navy, we go out." Make no mistake that when I suggested earlier that this film is lighter than Kubrick's I did not mean to suggest that Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers are any less brave or tough as Marines. You may also walk away from The Guardian with the same notion.

My issue with the film is that there wasn't a lot of 'going out' unless you apply the little phrase to Jake (Ashton Kutcher) and Emily's (Melissa Sagemiller) dating. There was a little too much love story. Not enough buddy-film. And mostly training camp. I think a more action-oriented movie might have generated another star.

But overall The Guardian was an enjoyable movie.

SpongeBob Squarepants' Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) even makes an appearance in this tale of The Sea. And a funny bit of trivia is that Clancy is most known for (no, not the voice of Mr. Krabs) his role as Captain Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, and Captain Hadley is indeed his name again in The Guardian.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much of this movie. Afterall, it had Ashton Kutcher, from Punk'd! But, it was a superbly well put together movie. Ashton, was paired with the older and better Kevin Costner, and the two of them did a tremendous job throughout the movie. Sure, there's the usual formulaic method of pairing the young athletic guy with the washed up gruff officer, but Kutcher and Costner surprised me.

The 137 minutes went by quite quickly, and it didn't feel slow at all. The rescue swimmer training was definitely an eye opener (nice to see Neal McDonough pop up as a trainer there!). It gave me a newfound sense of respect for our brave men and women in the USCG, and it didn't do it in any overtly brash way either.

"That others may live" is embodied especially at the end (I won't spoil the ending), and it was quite a heart rendering moment. 2 thumbs way up for a tastefully done film about the coast guard.

And I agree with the guy below- whoever designed the DVD jacket cover should be taken to the back cellar and flogged.

As a maritime lawyer for over 40 years in the marine casualty field, and as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary since 1960 who has had an opportunity to observe USCG air and sea rescue operations, I can testify to the accuracy of this film. "The Guardian" manages to capture the extraordinary ethos and motivation of coasties and to present this in the context of a moving story with great visual impact. An unforgettable motion picture, which especially needs to be seen by all who have not known that our smallest armed service has fewer active members than the New York City Police Force.