Guardian, The

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The Guardian is that rarest of cinematic commodities: an action movie displaying brains and heart and the opportunity for its stars to do something more than keep the narrative flowing between explosions.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The Guardian doesn't offer too many surprises. Except for one: it's genuinely well-made and, at least when it comes to the character Ben Randall, kind of moving.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

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.

Variety Joe Leydon

The overlong but involving drama has obvious cross-generational appeal.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

A surprisingly engaging character-driven picture: not quite Ingmar Bergman, of course, but not Michael Bay either.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kate Taylor

With high seas and crashing waves created by Canadian special-effects company Fusion CIS, there's nothing wrong with the nail-biting side of the equation featuring a sequence of distinct maritime accidents; it's the rest of the plot that is taking on water.

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

Sometimes you want to buy an extra-large popcorn and settle in for a big budget Hollywood blockbuster replete with entertaining explosions, undemanding dialogue and completely unrealistic action sequences. If all that sounds like gloriously uncomplicated fun, The Guardian is your movie.

Premiere Scott Warren

Ultimately a valentine to the unsung heroes of the US Coast Guard and it's probably long overdue.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's not easy being macho while you're shivering like a frozen puppy, but Kutcher pulls it off.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

At its best when its heroes race furiously toward their missions, most of which involve jumping out of a helicopter into surging waves.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

That the film doesn't rise above the formulaic is a particular disappointment as these stunningly brave Rescue Swimmers deserve a film as daring as they are.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

An action movie, a basic training movie, a swaggering sea adventure, a home front melodrama and an inspiring tough-love heroic teacher fable. If the aggregate of all these movies is exhausting and occasionally overwrought, some of the parts are stirring and effective, though not exactly fresh.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

As a story of courage and personal growth, The Guardian is perfunctory, a saga of character building that could (and may, advertently or otherwise) serve as a Coast Guard recruitment vehicle. But it's far more interesting as a tale of two faces: Kutcher and Costner have a kind of visual chemistry that's just as elusive as the other kind. And the connection and contrast between them remind us that Hollywood isn't as forgiving of older male actors as we like to think.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Tries tremendously hard to win audiences over with manly derring-do, exciting action, and impossible-obstacles-overcome uplift. And it's undeniably compelling for minutes at a time

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie represents an earnest effort to compensate for all the love the media has shown to firefighters and other land-based first responders in recent years with little thought to the Coast Guard; the drama also crashes on wave upon wave of clichés.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

I'm not suggesting Costner and Kutcher should run out and remake "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" just yet, but in The Guardian, the two actors turn out to complement each other well enough to make a lot of this supremely derivative and formulaic picture go down better than it should.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Costner has the stoic routine down pat, and there are some spectacular action sequences of helicopter rescues on the high seas, but Kutcher is in way over his head.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The kind of inspirational movie that Hollywood made about the Army, Navy and Marines during World War II. Now, with inspiration in short supply, it's the Coast Guard's turn.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

The overly familiar plot points also make the film feel a little dated.

USA Today Scott Bowles

Don't be surprised if, in the middle of The Guardian, you get an overpowering sense of déjà vu. Assuming you've seen "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Top Gun" or any of the myriad basic-training films Hollywood churns out, you've seen The Guardian.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The only performance worth watching is Costner's. Now that he seems resigned to being something less than an A-list luminary, he is often modest and affecting.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

The Guardian is neither serious enough to take seriously nor flashy enough to get by on thrills alone. Jerry Bruckheimer, where art thou?

ReelViews James Berardinelli

There's nothing in The Guardian that audiences haven't previously been exposed to ad nauseam.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

When Costner is good, as he is here, his acting has a purity to it, an unspoken moral dimension. Underneath the sensitive, stoic facade is a loquacious, intellectually alert actor with an encyclopedic understanding of the film tradition he occupies: the rugged, humble movie hero, embodied by the likes of Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The point of all this solemnity may be to pay serious respect to those rescue swimmers, who courageously look after errant kayakers or victims of Hurricane Katrina. But what we get in exchange is a movie that feels too much like a Coast Guard recruitment film. Who wants to pay to see that?

TV Guide Ken Fox

A predictable amalgam of every military-academy movie you can think of.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Davis and company need to be taken to task for giving us a movie that makes rescue divers, arguably among the most death-defying of professionals, boring.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Ultimately, The Guardian veers off into slobbery touchy-feeliness, and the tone becomes mock-religious, almost liturgical.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The men who made The Guardian strive to be the averagest of the average - and don't quite succeed.