The Guardian is an action movie, a basic training movie, a swaggering sea adventure, a home front melodrama and an inspiring tough-love heroic teacher fable.
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09/29/06
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The Guardian (2006)
37
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Reviews Counted:142
Fresh:52
Rotten:90
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: The Coast Guard gets its chance for a heroic movie tribute, but The Guardian does it no justice, borrowing cliche after cliche from other (and better) military branch movies.
Theatrical Release:2006-Fall
Box Office: $54,983,983
Synopsis: Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher team up in this torch-passing tale of the brave men and women in the Navy Coastguard elite rescue diver unit. A catastrophic rescue mission leaves him wounded after... [More]
Starring: Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Clancy Brown, Sela Ward
Director: Andrew Davis
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Reviews for The Guardian
Top CriticThere is a breadth of quality about the acting, including a fine performance from Sela Ward as Ben's estranged wife - making a lot more of her role than her meagre scripting suggests.
12/07/07
Daring rescues during wild storms at sea? Yes, but 'The Guardian' also features strong performances by Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.
09/20/06
Flaws aside, The Guardian still emerges as an above-average military drama, even if it does come with the obligatory cheese and a flair for the melodramatic.
09/28/06
... plays to every cornball, wave-the-flag, stand-up-and-cheer beat of our star-spangled hearts. Yet, somehow, movies like that get to us.
09/29/06
It's all been done before, but Costner and Kutcher make this worth watching again.
09/29/06
A decade after the commercial and critical flop of Waterworld nearly drowned his career, Kevin Costner is back to sea in The Guardian, and this time his dignity remains afloat.
09/29/06
It is surprising to find quite a good Coast Guard movie. But then, it's surprising to find any Coast Guard movie.
09/29/06
...an old-fashioned, irresistibly earnest piece of work...
03/10/07
Cliché plot but great action, and Costner and Kutcher are worthy of a look.
10/04/06
A popcorn flick like this does best when it sticks to shallow waters.
09/29/06
Applying the formula of basic training/military school films like Top Gun and Officer and Gentleman to a resonably timely subject, Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, Davis' genre item is predictable and uncritical but well-executed and enjoyable as mass fare
09/19/06
It's that earnest naivete that makes the film rather charming, actually, if over-simple and at least 30 minutes too long.
09/28/06
The story doesn't offer anything new, but [director Andrew] Davis tells it with conviction ... and sometimes that's enough.
10/09/06
The Guardian is entirely predictable but it's a good formula. They make the ride fun.
09/29/06
An inspiring look at the Coast Guard's Rescue Swimmers whose motto is "So others may live."
09/28/06
Costner comes through swimmingly.
10/02/06
It's a subject worthy of a well-told, well-acted story, and there are times when The Guardian meets that standard.
09/29/06
Despite the punishing length and fidelity to formula, The Guardian isn't a disaster and is often quite watchable.
09/29/06
Formulaic but involving. Makes waves.
09/28/06
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