There has always been something about Ashton Kutcher that has made me hate him, even since the first time I saw him on film in Dude, Where’s My Car?. I imagine if I would have seen That 70s Show my hatred would have been much stronger. However, in Andrew Davis’ The Guardian, I have found myself respecting his character more than anything other role he has played as well as Kutcher as an actor himself. Most likely, the reason I haven’t been able to appreciate Kutcher is that he has always either played an idiot (most of his films) or something much too serious for his level (The Butterfly Effect).

Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) is an aging member of the United States Coast Guard. For too long he’s been rescuing others and too many times he’s been putting himself too over the line to save them. He’s been urged by his officers that it’s time to throw in the towel, especially way past the age of forty. To make matters worse, his wife has just presented him with separation papers. Now, he’s been instructed to teach the next generation, and unfortunately, one of them is out to replace all of his old records. Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) is a hot-shot, out of high school, top-ranking candidate for the Coast Guard’s Aviation Survival Technician (AST) Program in Alaska. After weeks of grueling training completes and other candidates have been filtered, Randall goes against protocol to teach his own way, but Fischer continues parading around arrogantly, but one feels there’s a softer deeper side to BOTH Randall and Fischer.

While attending AST, Fischer begins to casually date a local school teacher, Emily Thomas (Melissa Sagemiller), and they begin to date “casually.” Jake and Emily begin to attend a local bar, and one evening have a conversation about old Ben Randell, exposed to the story that made him such a legend. The film really goes back and forth between where it wants to go, but centers upon Randell’s emotional roller coaster about the idea of separating from his wife, the haunting memories of past rescue missions, and also keeping his promise to train the next generation.

If you’ve read a lot of my reviews you know what my basic idea of sports and army-navy types are. Unless there is something else to the movie such as last year’s piece of art, Jarhead, I generally don’t care or have any interest in seeing the film. First of all, let me clarify my reasons for seeing this film:

-Kevin Costner, I liked him in Rumor Has It
-Ashton Kutcher, sure he’s usually been bad, but everyone deserves a second chance
-I’ve seen plenty of army-navy films, but never from the perspective of a rescuer

To begin reviewing, which I feel I haven’t done in such a long time, I want to give a special nod to Ashton Kutcher for actually doing something worthy of doing… no wait, I can’t say that, there have been one or two roles that anyone would be honored to have played but Kutcher brought the film down, for example, his over-serious performance in The Butterfly Effect.

Kutcher plays Fischer, the young arrogant high school swimmer, with thankfully, more dimension to his character thanks to his own performance and Ron L. Brinkerhoff’s screenplay. Kutcher’s adaptability to Costner is actually much better than Costner’s own adaptability to Kutcher. Throughout the film there is the consistent familiar teacher vs. pupil element, however action and reaction isn’t always perfect between the two.

Costner is Randall, the aging legend who is quite shaken by recent experiences and like Kutcher, Costner’s character is also multi-dimensional. Interestingly, this experience doesn’t so much change his character through external emotions, but through some interesting cinematography courtesy of Andrew Davis and Stephen St. John, the flashbacks are very traumatic events haunting him from inside out. I have recently been debating whether or not Randall’s rock-hard character he potrays was actually the intention of Brinkerhoff or whether he was directed against (by Andrew Davis) the screenplay.

Brinkerhoff’s screenplay however has somewhat a problematic sequence of its own. Not only does the film run almost an entire hour too long filled with mostly hair of breadth rescue missions and almost impossible training sessions, it feels like it is always jumping around between these events and it feels seemingly predictable. The little “casual “dating” happening between Kutcher’s character and that of Melissa Sagemiller seems almost like a time killer, something used to fill the gap between all the flashbacks, training sessions, and rescue missions. In all seriousness, I’m really beginning to believe that Ashton Kutcher was the most positive aspect of this film. I’ll say it again because I’m having trouble convincing myself this to be true. Ashton Kutcher was the most positive aspect of this film. There are two ways in which this can be looked at, one being that perhaps the rest of the film was so bad it made Kutcher look good, the second being perhaps Kutcher has turned himself around. Surprisingly, it’s the second option.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action/peril, brief strong language and some sensuality.
Running time 136 minutes.