Bodyguard [Special Edition,,Snapper Case]

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First, some interesting trivia. Well, at least this stuff is interesting to me, but I'm easy.

"The Bodyguard" got generally dismal reviews when it was released in 1992 and then went on to take in well over $120,000,000 in U.S. box office receipts and over $400,000,000 worldwide. So much for reviewers. The compact disc of the film's music became one of the biggest-selling soundtrack albums in history. The movie was written in the early seventies as a first-ever script by Lawrence Kasdan, who went on to do a few things you might know, like "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Body Heat," "The Big Chill," "Silverado," "The Accidental Tourist," "Grand Canyon," and a couple of yawners, "Wyatt Earp" and "Dreamcatcher." "The Bodyguard" was originally intended for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross, but McQueen bowed out and studios thought the premise too controversial. Then it was going to be made with Ryan O'Neal and Ross, but the two actors had a falling out. Finally, it was championed by Kevin Costner, who stars here with Whitney Houston. Two years after the picture was made, the story was reworked in Hong Kong as "The Defender" or "The Bodyguard from Beijing" (1994) with Jet Li. You can see this thing's been around, and it carries a history.

But is "The Bodyguard" any good? Frankly, I'd have to lump it in with Kasdan's yawners.

The story itself is about as unlikely as a person could imagine, and about as hackneyed as well. Nor does it help that Costner and Houston never exactly light up the screen with their chemistry.

The plot is pretty simple. Hugely rich and successful pop-star, singer, actress Rachel Marron (Houston) is being stalked and threatened by what her personal manager, Bill Devaney (Bill Cobbs) presumes to be a psychotic killer. Ex Secret Service agent Frank Farmer (Costner) is hired to protect her and her and eight-year-old son. Naturally, it's hate at first sight. Rachel thinks Frank is too fussy and overprotective, and he thinks she is arrogant and foolhardy. Just as naturally, the two eventually fall in love. Or in lust, it's hard to tell.

This kind of thing is always happening in fiction. The rich girl is always falling in love with the handsome hired help. It's a chestnut so old that even Mark Twain spoofed it over a hundred years ago in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Tom Sawyer is talking to his band of naive young followers, telling them that if they're going to be a real gang, they have to kidnap people and ransom them. "Say, do we kill the women, too?" asks one of the kids. "Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No--nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go home any more." Tom learned all about this cliché from old potboilers he'd read. And here Kasdan comes up with a variation of the idea for a modern movie.

It's not that the film is all bad. I liked some of the music and Whitney Houston's singing. Not enough to buy the soundtrack album as millions of other people did, but enough to find it pleasant. I liked the house the filmmakers used for Rachel's place. It's the old Greystone Gardens and Mansion in Beverly Hills, the location for dozens of other movies (including, I believe, the famous horse's head mansion in "The Godfather"). I liked the reference in the movie to Kurosawa's tongue-in-cheek samurai saga, "Yojimbo," a film about a warrior who hires himself out (like Costner's character), and a film whose English title was literally "The Bodyguard." I liked Costner's haircut, which is supposed to remind us of Steve McQueen, and I liked the name of Costner's character, Frank. Or perhaps you don't remember one of McQueen's most famous roles, as Frank Bullitt. A proposed chase scene that never came off at the end of "The Bodyguard" might have helped after all. And I liked a couple of the actors. The kid who plays Rachel's son, Fletcher (DeVaughan Nixon), is friendly and agreeable; and the fellow who plays Rachel's security chief, the muscle-headed Tony Scipelli (Mike Starr), is a loveable tough guy.

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