Guardian Review

Although the recently released action/adventure film, The Guardian, offers some thrilling moments and a warm and fuzzy story of heroism and friendship, it is a bit too formulaic, too closely resembling a combination of the modern classics Top Gun and An Officer and a Gentleman.

Kevin Costner stars as  Ben Randall, a down and out veteran rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard, just coming off a botched rescue mission and facing divorce due to preoccupation with his career. He is re-assigned to the coast guard training center in Kodiak, Alaska, the Top Gun school of the Coast Guard, where he meets a talented, hot- shot, young swimmer, Jake Fischer. (Ashton Kutcher) Although they get off to a rough start, Randall and Fischer discover that they have a lot more in common than rescue swimming, when Fischer reveals a painful secret that binds the two together, as they face a dangerous life and death rescue mission in the Bering Sea.

This film takes the viewer inside the previously unexplored world of Coast Guard rescue swimmers, with some thrilling underwater rescue footage. The characters are fairly well developed due, in part, to convincing lead performances by Costner and Kutcher. The two actors develop a surpisingly good on-screen chemistry.

Although the story is far from original, borrowing heavily from similar films of the genre, the friendship between Randall and Fischer is genuinely moving. I hestitate to give it a glowing recomendation due to its lack of originality. However, The Guardian is a solid action/adventure film with some tense moments memorable characters, and an intriguing look at the training and missions of Coast Guard rescue swimmers.