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So, once upon a time there were Richard Gere and Lou Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), and Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis in Top Gun (1986), and now you can add to the list Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in The Guardian, another version (and not the best, in my opinion) of the same story.An excelling yet rebellious and arrogant cadet is accepted into a prestigious and desirable military training course, and finds a father/mother substitute in the form of a tough but golden hearted instructor, up to the successful completion of the training and facing his first baptism of fire, finding true love on the way.
Kutcher probably wanted to shake off the pretty boy image and position himself as an action star (a process which started with The Butterfly Effect), like Keanu Reeves did in Speed. Will it work out for him as it did for Reeves? Too early to tell. Costner returns to the sea (probably his great love, judging from Waterworld), and adds to the story the myth of the mystery man who protects drowning people at sea and stays by their side until the rescue forces arrive. Too bad the chemistry between them doesn't really work. The women in their lives are hardly worth mentioning – they both take women's lib decades back (and this in spite of the fact that some women actually participate in the Coast Guard's training program, and one of them is the one who chooses Kutcher's love to be). I did like the writer's non-corny solution to Costner's marital problems - he gave up on his wife, who left him because of the time devoted to his career, and did not try to get back together with her after he retired (and returned, and retired, and returned...) Too bad the cut was not much more clearer at this point . |