the leading man is my tpye

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There is nothing too much original about The Guardian. It is a tale of veteran coast guard Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) who after a tragic rescue operation and a troubled marriage is assigned to train new recruits at coast guard training school.He meets cocky Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) a swimming champion who has joined the coast guard training and who starts a casual relationship with another teacher while in training.At first Ben and Jake do not get along but gradually come to respect each other especially as Jake opens up about his past.The film is just too formulaic, you have seen elements of it in films like Top Gun or Backdraft. Director Andrew Davis excels in the coast guard rescue scenes but too much of the film is choppy.

First, I spent over 3 years at the busiest Search and Rescue station in the Coast Guard, NAS Reserve New Orleans. Keven Costner played a Master Chief on SAR missions, that virtually never happens. The chiefs went home at 4:00 and the grunts took over. And during the day the ready crew for SAR missions was always E-6 and below.Sometimes the senior officers went on SAR missions as pilots but never senior chiefs. I was an E-6 when I got out after logging over 1000 hours as a crewman. I will agree with others unless things have changed there was never any hurah just hard work and lots of it. We often worked 36 hours straight and put peoples lives at risk because of absolute fatigue! I was involved in multiple life saving missions as well as missions to pick up those that did not survive.It was an amazing experience but I also no longer miss wondering if I will live or die during a mission. I sent a MayDay and also flew on another mission that declared and emergency. In the 4 months before I got out 3 helos crashed and there was one survivor out of all the crashes, 11 men giving their lives. Also, there was never any melodrama when we were making life and death decision, we fully understood our responsibilities and it was always very professional when we were forced to make those decisions!FYI if you watched the movie my number was about 6 or 7, it was a hard number to think about and decide. But that was in about 3 years and 3 months.

Version I saw: UK DVD releaseActors: 6/10Plot/script: 5/10Photography/visual style: 6/10Music/score: 5/10Overall: 6/10You can imagine the production meeting. Costner and Kutcher were middle-sized names, with their own followings, so it seemed reasonable to put them together in a middle-budget film. Costner has moved on from action heroes and romantic leads to grizzled military types and father figures, and Ashton makes an effective cocky young recruit who will grow under his tutelage. Throw in the idea of shining the spotlight on a less glamorous area of the military, and the rest pretty much writes itself. Basically, it's An Officer and a Gentleman with helicopter sea rescuers instead of air force pilots. It's really that blatant.Presumably that is why they gave it to comparative screen writing novice Ron L Brinkerhoff, and he does a decent job of putting tab A into slot B, adding in some (I assume) well-researched details that enhance the Coastguard training academy scenes, and finessing some of the character interactions with a bit of extra metaphor and frisson. The whole thing plays to a moderately right-wing middle-American patriotic audience, with a soundtrack comprising mostly pop and country music.Both of the leads are accomplished but not inspired. Costner has the experience and charisma to come across as likable even while playing the unnecessarily cruel, hard taskmaster, and Kutcher does better as the cocky douchebag than the sensitive hero, but he stops well short of disgracing himself.The director is a safe bet. Andrew Davis is probably best known for action thrillers Under Siege and The Fugitive. He brings his skill with those action set-pieces to the couple of (presumably quite expensive) helicopter rescue scenes, generating a really visceral sense of the danger and discomfort. He can also be trusted to not make a mess of the character interaction dialogue scenes.I found the whole reasonably diverting, if rather forgettable. One to watch when you are feeling a bit fragile, and not in the mood for anything at all challenging.

This movie was so underrated in my opinion. I have to admit, I originally had low expectations and only saw it because I actually think Kutcher is a pretty good actor. I have to admit I was surprise. The movie was not slow, it kept the viewer engage and all these people crying about how sappy & cliché it was, I don't know what they're talking about. One of the things I like best is that unlike similar movies such as "a soldier and a gentle men",or damn near every military movie ever made, it tried to not dwell in the clichés too long. The movie did'nt dwell in the love story, or the young man coming into him self story, nor did it harp on the coast guard the way most propaganda military movies do. It was quite balance in my opinion. Now, I must admit, there were little moments that were slightly over the top but never unrealistic. These so called critics amaze me with their crappy reviews that seem to like nothing unless it's historical, overly politically correct or is a representation of what they deem even worthy which is usually boring. How could they pan this movie and give rave reviews to total crap like looper...I'm done!