News: Ashton Kutcher

The toyboy hubby of Demi Moore is going to be hard to avoid at the multiplexes this month, cropping up in the Kevin Costner-starring The Guardian, out this week, before appearing amidst the impressive ensemble cast of actor-turned-director Emilio Estevez’s much-anticipated political drama Bobby – which debuts at the London Film Festival on the 26th – about the assassination of JFK’s brother Bobby Kennedy.

He currently has no other projects in the pipeline, taking a well-earned break after the eight months of hard physical training he did before his appearance alongside Costner in The Guardian.

Review: The Guardian

UK Release: 13th October 2006

This corny but thrilling action adventure is further proof that Kevin Costner is getting better with age. He plays Ben Randall, an ace US Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer who’s transferred to a training facility after being involved in a tragedy at sea that left his crew dead. Among the students he’s assigned is cocky Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher), a young hostshot who has the ability if not the attitude to take Randall’s crown.

If this was a western, Costner would be the old gunslinger and Kutcher the quick-draw kid who wants to take him down. Clichés aside, the film’s storm-rescue sequences are outstanding and Costner demonstrates how an action hero can age gracefully. Sure, the film is a tad too long, and the quasi-mythic elements are a bit silly. Otherwise, this is a guilty pleasure.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 138mins

Review by David Aldridge

News: Kevin Costner

The actor much derided in the 1990s as an egomaniac with little sense of what makes a good movie (go and watch the horrendous and vastly expensive post-apocalyptic sci-fi epics Waterworld and The Postman again if you’ve forgotten why) seems to be having a bit of a career renaissance at the moment, with generally good reviews of his performance in this week’s actioner The Guardian.

Whether his next project, Mr Brooks, where Costner plays the lead in a modern psychological thriller with more than a bit of a dept to both the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Dr Jeckll and Mr Hyde and modern movie classic Fight Club, remains to be seen. The film is currently in post-production, and due to hit cinemas in spring 2007.