The Bodyguard (1992)
By Roger Ebert
The
ads for "The Bodyguard" make it look like a romance, but actually
it's a study of two lifestyles: of a pop music superstar whose fame and fortune
depends on millions of fans, and of a professional bodyguard who makes his
living by protecting her from those fans. The movie does contain a love story,
but it's the kind of guarded passion that grows between two people who spend a
lot of time keeping their priorities straight.
The
star is Rachel Marron, played by Whitney Houston, and
is as rich and famous as . . . Whitney Houston. The bodyguard is Frank Farmer
(Kevin Costner), who got his training in the Secret Service and still blames
himself for the fact that Ronald Reagan got shot, even though he had an
excellent excuse for being away from work that day. Now Farmer hires himself
out at $3,000 a week to guard celebrities, and is careful not to get involved.
Of
course that's easy at the outset. He is hired by Marron's
manager after the singer gets death threats. It's not love at first sight. The
conventions of this genre require that the star and bodyguard have to get off
on the wrong foot; she doesn't want him meddling with her lifestyle and
freedom, and he doesn't have any respect for an uncooperative client.
Eventually
the tension between them melts, and there is a sort of love affair, based
mostly on mutual proximity (they never talk about much but their professional
relationship, and the skills of his job). There's an odd, effective dating
scene where she leaves her mansion to visit his cluttered, grim little
apartment (and a peculiar moment with a samurai sword and a scarf that is
undeniably erotic).
Meanwhile,
Farmer gets to know some of the members of Rachel's retinue, including her son,
her sister, her manager and her obnoxious press agent (Gary Kemp). These people
are supported by Marron, and live with her on her
terms, creating eddies of jealousy and palace intrigue. She is aware of her
power, and tells Farmer she is essentially a nice person who is considered a
bitch by a lot of people, and wishes that weren't so.
The
death threats keep coming in. There is a frightening scene at a charity
concert, where Marron places her personal safety in
the hands of a mob, and Farmer, with all of his skills, is powerless to protect
her. I was less impressed by the scenes where he wires her estate with security
cameras, and at one point goes crashing through her
shrubbery in pursuit of a suspicious van. What's he going to do? Leap onto the
roof and hammer his way in through the windshield?
The
movie was written by Lawrence Kasdan ("Body
Heat," "Grand Canyon") and directed by Mick Jackson, and
contains a little of the Hollywood insider cynicism Kasdan
suggested in the Steve Martin character in "Grand Canyon." The
willingness of the press agent to risk anything for publicity is noted, as well
as the star's sense of personal invulnerability. This is
The movie was made as a thriller, I
suppose, because of box-office considerations. I felt a little cheated by the
outcome, although I should have been able to predict it, using my Law of
Economy of Characters, which teaches that no movie contains any unnecessary characters,
so that an apparently superfluous character is probably the killer. I thought
the basic situation in "The Bodyguard" was intriguing enough to
sustain a film all by itself: on the one hand, a star who grows rich through
the adulation that fans feel for her, and on the other hand, a working man who,
for a salary, agrees to substitute his body as a target instead of hers. Makes
you think.
The Bodyguard
Frank
Farmer Kevin Costner
Rachel Marron Whitney
Houston
Directed by Mick