The Bodyguard

Needless to say The Bodyguard is tosh. The only surprise about the film is the extent of the toshness and the fact that it became a huge box office hit.

Kevin Costner plays former secret service agent Frank Farmer who (perhaps to appeal to the film’s projected demographic) has been traumatized by the shooting of President Ronald Reagan), quit the service and gone freelance.  He is hired to provide security for chart-topping pop diva Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston).  Rachel bristles under Frank’s obsessive ways but….you know the rest.

The  Bodyguard  is a credit to its writer and producer Lawrence Kasdan, an exemplar of money-spinning Hollywood films since his first big hit,The Big Chill in 1983 although even he was probably surprised by the extent of its success.  As far as I can see that came down primarily to two things. Firstly, Kasdan tapped into the glamour of the pop world (which had long eclipsed Hollywood in the eyes of the hoi polloi), and secondly he has cast then-reigning pop queen Whitney Houston in the lead (something similar worked for Barbra Striesand in her awful 1976 remake of A Star is Born)  One could add too perhaps that given that this is a film primarily for a female audience Mr All-American, Kevin Costner, was also a judicious choice.

Directed by Mick Jackson whose only other previous credit of note was the Steve Martin comedy, L.A. Story (there has not been another since) the film alternates between Frank’s to-say-the-least over-zealous attempts to protect Rachel (Jackson has fondness for rolling dives which Frank does on three occasions in addition to his final taking-a-bullet dive) and Rachel’s cosseted life-style as the tin-pot plot contrives to bring the inevitable about with a mega- schmaltzy grand finale to the accompaniment of Houston’s classic rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You” (and Parton must have loved the royalties).

If Costner is no more than Costner, Houston is engaging in her first acting gig and, somewhat remarkably for the time, although perhaps this a reflection of her public image as light-skinned crossover artist, there is absolutely no mention of the inter-racial aspect of the romance, the film wrapping with a traditional Hollywood screen kiss.

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