Costner and great action sequences keep predictable 'Guardian' afloat

Friday, September 29, 2006

From Tom Cruise on down, the hallmark of the male movie stars who emerged in the '80s has been a youthful boyishness. And as those stars now enter middle age, many of them are finding the transition to maturity a tough one to make on film.

MOVIE REVIEW

THE GUARDIAN

DIRECTOR: Andrew Davis

CAST: Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Sela Ward

RUNNING TIME: 136 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of action, brief strong language and some sensuality

GRADE: B

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Kevin Costner, who turns 52 in January but looks older, is one who's obviously decided to face the crisis head on, taking on two roles last year ("The Upside of Anger" and "Rumor Has It") that rather emphatically emphasized his advancing years.

In "The Guardian," he does it again. Indeed, this time the hero's age is what the movie is all about. And Costner makes it work for him. Despite the movie being overly long and fairly cliched, it makes a strong showcase for his seasoned charisma.

He plays Ben Randall, a senior chief in the U.S. Coast Guard and the most legendary member of its elite corps of rescue swimmers, who we meet in the midst of a disastrous rescue off the coast of Alaska that leaves him the only survivor.

Haunted by the death of his crew, abandoned by his long-suffering wife (Sela Ward) and told by his commanding officer (Clancy Brown) that he's too old for the job, Ben finds himself transferred against his will to the rescue-swimmer training center.

Naturally, he turns out to be the strictest instructor anyone there has ever seen, and he's soon embroiled in a clash of wills with an unusually talented trainee (Ashton Kutcher): a championship swimmer with a demon of his own that needs to be exorcised by a strong father figure.

The film is a gushing valentine to the valor of the U.S. Coast Guard, and most of it is so familiar it seems to have been stitched together from bits and pieces of other movies, including "An Officer and a Gentleman," "The Perfect Storm" and several Clint Eastwood vehicles.

But director Andrew Davis ("The Fugitive") has a gift for complex action scenes, the film's grueling training sequences have a perverse fascination, and, though he's nothing special here, Kutcher is probably the most appealing he has been in a big-screen role.

Costner's performance also powers the movie along nicely. The cockiness that once defined his screen persona has been replaced by quiet competence, steely professionalism and hard-earned wisdom -- a ripened, contrite version of his "Bull Durham" character.

And the transition is carried out with such grace that one suspects the public finally may forgive him for the arrogance of his "Waterworld" era, and allow him -- like Nicholson, De Niro and so many of the male leads of the '70s -- a movie-star career well into his golden years.

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