Guardian, The (Blu-ray)

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What makes one man stand out among the rest? And for that matter, what makes a film? There's no shortage of "training" movies, where a seasoned veteran mentors a young rookie. Some of them sag and drag, while others seem by-the-numbers, and still others manage to muscle their way ahead of the pack to be entertaining in spite of the formula and clichés that tend to make any genre familiar.

What got me thinking about this was "The Guardian," which received mixed reviews. Here's what we know we'll get in a film like this: competition or tension between the trainer and the trainee, plenty of scenes showing the grueling regimen that gives the trainee a chance to rise above the pack of other recruits, subplots or back stories about the problems the characters each face in their personal lives to make us care whether they succeed or fail, some romantic entanglement (usually), and a climax in which everyone is tested. Will the trainee rise to the real challenge after excelling under simulated conditions?

It doesn't matter whether it's a Western, thriller, slasher flick, romantic comedy, or sports film. When you deal with a recognizable genre you're going to have some recognizable conventions that have become a part of that genre. What makes a film rise above that?

Well, the script, first and foremost. You can have the greatest actors in the world onboard, but if the lines are cardboard and the director doesn't give them room to improvise, you're going to get a final product that feels clichéd and lackluster. Though the structure and conventions are familiar, the dialogue in "The Guardian" is believable enough that for the span of 139 minutes we're willing to forget that these are actors mouthing lines.

When you have actors with charisma and purpose, not bland SAG-members picking up a paycheck, you also get a film that transcends the genre. Both Kevin Costner (as Randall, the top Coast Guard rescue swimmer of all-time) and Ashton Kutcher (as Fischer, the talented-but-cocky heir apparent who breaks all of Randall's training camp records) are charismatic enough to hold our interest.

Then there's the events themselves. I just body-slammed "Gridiron Gang" in a recent review because every single play, every single training scene, every single game situation was something we've already seen before--no variation whatsoever. Here, though, I have to admit that the training exercises themselves weren't just devices to move the plot forward or ways to illustrate character. Yes, they told us about Randall and Fischer, but the scenes themselves were also interesting. Whether it was watching the recruits pushing cinder blocks across a pool or supporting them as they were stacked on top of a rescue basket while they were treading water, this wasn't something I'd seen before. Same with Randall's lesson on hypothermia. Why go by the book and tell them about the stages, when you can jump in an iced-down pool with them and experience all those stages? There's some clap clap clap "Hoo-rah" here, but it's unique moments like these that make the training sequences nearly as enjoyable to watch as the actual moments of peril and attempted rescue.