On a plane above the Pacific Ocean I screened this film about US Coast Guards. As if that wasn't appropriate enough, I'd just spent ten days snorkeling the blue ocean waters along the coastlines of the Hawaiian Islands. Couple that with the fact that I simply had little else to do on a four plus hour plane ride -- I certainly, was up for the film.

Despite, the dinky 8 inch monitor -- I quite enjoyed the picture. Costner was solid, and Kutcher pretty good too, though, in parts, he strained. Of course the film gets hokey in spots, still it had me one hundred percent engaged -- choked up even -- on several occasions.

As with many rescue missions in general, the climax and ending didn't quite go as planned. In fact, the film seems to be trying on different endings one after the other. Graduation day was a perfectly fine place to end. I would have even given the film an A- had it finished itself there. But, The Guardian goes on, and on, off the deep end into the even hokier. And for that, it splashes backwards on my grade scale -- almost to a flat B. But since it did choke me up so much, I'm calling it a weak B+.

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