Movies Columns

Unseen Movie Review: The Guardian

By Robert Dixter Sep 24, 2006, 7:06 GMT

After losing his crew in a fatal crash, legendary Rescue Swimmer, Ben Randall (Kevin Costner), is sent to teach at “A” School, an elite training program for Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers.  Wrestling with the loss of his crew members, he throws himself into teaching, turning the program upside down with his unorthodox training methods. While there, he encounters a young, cocky swim champ, Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher), who is driven to ...more

I recently sat down with a studio executive and tried to pitch a pretty original idea for a film.  It went something like this: a cocky young man is driven to be the best. For the sake of this pitch we’ll call him Maverick. Maverick joins a training program where they take the best and make them better.

For the remainder of this pitch, we’ll refer to this program as Top Gun.  Stick with me because this pitch has “blockbuster” written all over it.

At Top Gun, Maverick trains hard, and who knows, maybe we even see him playing volleyball in his jeans with his shirt off. Then Maverick (who is now the best of the best) must apply what he’s learned at Top Gun in the field.

At this point in my pitch I leaned back, lit a cigar (since I was so sure it would sell) and told the executive he would be crazy to let this pass him by. As he mulled over this novel concept, I sprang forward and added there is also a grizzly old mentor character that has seen it all and was the best before a tragic accident that left him shaken and teaching at Top Gun.

The executive squinted at me and said, “I’m assuming this is set in a very cool setting with tons of danger and action, something like the pilots in the navy, right?”

I smiled an all knowing smile and replied ever so cleverly, “no, it’s the coast guard”.  It’s at this point that I was escorted from the office with the all the quickness usually shown to Mel Gibson at Bar Mitzvahs.

When I first heard about the new movie called ‘The Guardian’ I thought somebody had remade William Friedkin’s old film from 1990. Then I thought whatever happened to William Friedkin?

Then I wondered if William Friedkin was still mad at me for pitching my new reality show, “Homemade Exorcisms” to E! without him. But it seems there’s a movie studio out there that thinks it’s time Ashton Kutcher was seen as an action hero.

This is the same guy who played a moron named Kelso on “That 70’s Show,” then decided to prank celebrities on a show called Punk’d and finally wound up marrying Demi Moore and calling Bruce Willis his best friend. I just can’t see Ashton as the guy who saves the day. To me Ethan Suplee is more of an action hero that Ashton Kutcher.

The film also stars Kevin Costner as the mentor character who suffered a tragic accident and now must teach rather than save lives in the field. Kevin, I know you got divorced a while back but did you really lose all the ‘Dances With Wolves’ money? 

I remember seeing ‘The Untouchables’ in the theater and wondering who is this guy playing Elliot Ness?  He carried himself like a movie star and no doubt could act like a hero. Mark my words, I told my friends, this guy will be a huge star and will launch film budgets into a brand new stratosphere. 

“Are you referring to Waterworld?” they asked.

“No” I said, “I’m hoping for Sizzle Beach, USA the Deuce”.

Years after winning Oscars and raking in cash with ‘Dances with Wolves,’ Kev is stuck doing trash like ‘Rumor Has It’ (which I did see and will always fondly remember as the worst film of 2005 and a horrible way to spend New Year’s Eve).  But let’s put co-starring with Jennifer Aniston behind us, now Kev you can hold your head up high and tell everyone that you’re co-starring with Ashton Kutcher.

There is clearly no way I’m going to see this pile of wasted celluloid.  It just feels like Ashton has turned away from celebrities and has decided to start punking the movie going public.