Horror in the 90s The Guardian

The Guardian (1990)

Directed by William Friedkin

Written by Stephen Volk, William Friedkin

Starring Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell, Jenny Seagrove

Release Date April 27th, 1990

Box Office $17,000,000

The Guardian stars Dwier Brown and Carey Lowell as Phil and Kate Sterling. Phil and Kate have just moved to Los Angeles and have just found out they are having their first baby. Exciting times continue as their two jobs afford them a lovely suburban home and the ability to hire a nanny to care for their baby. The nanny they end up with is Camilla, played by Jenny Seagrove. Camilla got the job after the woman they initially wanted disappeared.

We know that that woman, played in a cameo by the wonderful Teresa Randle, has been badly injured, or possibly killed in a bike accident. We see this but it’s never clear if Phil and Kate are aware of what happened. Regardless, they appear quite pleased with hiring Camilla who appears to be warm and caring and has good references that they choose not to look into because she appears so sweet and sincere. What Phil and Kate don’t know however, is that a baby Camilla cared for in her last job, went missing under suspicious circumstances.

This sounds vaguely like the plot of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, doesn’t it. Indeed, The Guardian, at one point, was envisioned as a thriller along that line, one taking advantage of the fears of young parents. Then, at another point, The Guardian was envisioned as a broad horror comedy to be directed by Sam Raimi about a mystical being that cares for an ancient tree by providing the tree with the blood of babies. When Raimi left the project and was replaced by directing legend William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist apparently decided to mash these two disparate premises together.

Thus we have The Guardian a horror-thriller about an evil enchanted tree protector who steals babies from unsuspecting couples to feed her evil enchanted tree. This sounds comic but it is not intended to be funny in any way. It is however, just as sloppy, slipshod, and silly, as such a mash-up of movies would inevitably be. Friedkin choosing to keep both movies that The Guardian used to be and trying to awkwardly weld them together ends up delivering a desperately confused and unintentionally funny horror mess.

Find my full length review at Horror.Media

Movie Review The Guardian

The Guardian (2006) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Ron L. Brinkerhoff

Starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Sela Ward, Melissa Sagemiller, Clancy Brown, Omari Hardwick

Release Date September 29th, 2006 

Published September 29th, 2006 

Kevin Costner is maturing quite well into his elder statesman role. He has turned in a series of strong older leading man performances in Open Range, The Upside of Anger and he was the only appealing element of the abysmal romantic comedy Rumor has It. Costner's latest picture may be his most obvious transitional work. As a coast guard trainer to upstart Ashton Kutcher's rescue swimmer trainee, Costner is seen in The Guardian as passing the torch to a new generation.

If that last line isn't indication enough of the cheeseball nature of The Guardian wait till you hear the Bryan Adams tune that closes this eye rolling action adventure.

Kevin Costner stars in The Guardian as Senior Chief Ben Randall, a coast guard rescue swimmer. It is Ben's job to jump from helicopters into the roiling waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska and save lives. As a near 20 year veteran, no one has saved nearly as many lives. Sadly for Ben his latest mission led to a tragic accident that killed his entire crew, including his closest friend.

Washed out to the Coast Guard's elite training facility called A School, Ben is forced to give up rescue swimming in favor of training the next generation of swimmers. Amongst the new recruits is a brash former high school swimming champion named Jake Fischer. A hot head who lacks leadership and teamwork skills, Fischer clashes immediately with his new mentor.

No points for guessing that the adversarial relationship between Ben and Jake eventually comes to grudging respect to fatherly protectiveness before they are finally ready to save lives together. Yes, The Guardian as directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive); is as predictable as a road map. That said, the action on the high seas, the dangerous windswept life saving moments are more often than not very exciting.

Andrew Davis knows his way around great action from the train escape sequence in The Fugitive to the explosions of the otherwise awful Arnold Schwarzenneger flick Collateral Damage to the high seas action of The Guardian. It's the other aspects of direction, character, plot, tone, where Davis struggles as a director.

Working from a script by Ron Brinkerhoff, whose only other credit is the straight to video Sly Stallone pic D-Tox, Davis crafts a film that is part big action and part cheeseball kitsch. Every critic in the country has mentioned the obvious parallels between The Guardian and other military male bonding flicks like Top Gun, An Officer and A Gentleman and the oft forgotten De Niro flick Men Of Honor. The Guardian does nothing to separate itself from these films, heavily lifting from each with no regard for originality.

The Guardian had me rolling my eyes early on as we met Ben Randell's wife played by Sela Ward. If you guessed that Randall is one of those married to his job types and because of that his wife is leaving him; well, of course, you're right. This is such an obvious and obligatory scene, Ward's character moving her things out of their shared home, that it almost seems intentionally humorous. Almost.

Despite the predictability, despite the cheeseball way that director Andrew Davis rips off other similar films, I still found myself wrapped up in The Guardian. The action on the high seas is edge of your seat stuff with some terrifically well integrated CGI effects and a pair of game if waterlogged stars. Costner and Kutcher play well off of each other in the action scenes, really playing up the father-son dynamic of their relationship.

The film also has a credible, if not exactly smoking hot, romance for Kutcher's Jake Fischer. Melissa Sagemiller plays Emily; a school teacher who falls for Jake despite knowing that he will be shipped far away from where they meet, at the training school. The scenes between Kutcher and Sagemiller  begin with yet another of those predictable, been there done that moments, one where the cocky cadet bets his pals he can pick up the hottest girl in the bar in under a minute. It's a cheesy, eye rolling start, but these likable actors manage to make the romance work because they have pretty good chemistry.