The Bodyguard

Today, I’m going to take a look at the Whiney Houston / Kevin Costner romantic thriller, The Bodyguard.

The plot of The Bodyguard is summarized on IMDb as follows:

A former Secret Service agent takes on the job of bodyguard to a pop singer, whose lifestyle is most unlike a President’s.

The cast of The Bodyguard includes Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves, Waterworld, Mr. Brooks, Man of Steel, The Untouchables), Whitney Houston (Sparkle, The Preacher’s Wife, Waiting to Exhale), Bill Cobbs (Demolition Man, The Hudsucker Proxy, The People Under The Stairs), Ralph Waite (Days of our Lives, Cliffhanger, The Waltons), Tomas Arana (Frankenfish, The Bourne Supremacy, Gladiator, Tombstone), Michele Lamar Richards (Top Dog), Mike Starr (Dumb & Dumber, Uncle Buck, Ed Wood, Miller’s Crossing), Gerry Bamman (Home Alone, Runaway Jury), and Richard Schiff (The West Wing, The Lost World: Jurassic Park).

The Bodyguard was written and co-produced by Lawrence Kasdan, whose illustrious list of credits includes Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Silverado, The Big Chill, Wyatt Earp, Dreamcatcher, and The Force Awakens.

The director on The Bodyguard was Mick Jackson, who also helmed such productions as Volcano, L.A. Story, and Clean Slate.

Two editors are credited with work on The Bodyguard: Donn Cambern (The Glimmer Man, Little Giants, Twins, Ghostbusters II, Major League II, Cannonball Run, The Last Picture Show, Easy Rider, Excalibur, Time After Time, Harry and The Hendersons) and Richard A. Harris (The Bad News Bear, Fletch, The Golden Child, Terminator 2, Last Action Hero, True Lies, Titanic, The Toy).

The cinematographer for the film was Andrew Dunn, who also shot Hot Rod, Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama, Monkeybone, Addicted To Love, Gosford Park, Practical Magic, and Precious.

The movie’s musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri, a prolific movie scorer with credits including The Polar Express, The Avengers, Ready Player One, Flight, Van Helsing, Cast Away, Judge Dredd, Reindeer Games, Volcano, Super Mario Bros, Cop And A Half, Forrest Gump, Mac And Me, Predator, and Predator 2, among many others.

One of the greatest claims to fame for The Bodyguard is that it boasts the best-selling film soundtrack of all time, courtesy of the work and popularity of co-star Whitney Houston.

According to IMDb, a number of musical talents were at some point considered for Whitney Houston’s role: Dolly Parton, Madonna, Joan Jett, Janet Jackson, Pat Benatar, and Olivia Newton-John among them.

Prior to the 1990s, the screenplay for The Bodyguard had been on the shelf since the mid-1970s, when it was written initially for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross. However, it failed to get made at the time because it was apparently deemed “too controversial” to be successful.

When the film was initially screened for test audiences, consistent feedback indicated that most viewers hated Whitney Houston’s performance, which led to some re-cutting to attempt to make her character more likable.

The Bodyguard received seven Golden Raspberry Award (Razzie) nominations, including one for Worst Picture (which it lost to Shining Through). It also notably received two Academy Award nominations, both for Best Original Song. Given it received so many Razzie nominations, you can accurately conclude that critics were generally not fond of the movie. However, audiences were quite a bit more receptive to it: The Bodyguard currently has a 6.2/10 IMDb user rating, alongside Rotten Tomatoes scores of 35% from critics and 64% from audiences.

Financially, however, The Bodyguard was a smash hit. On a reported production budget of $25 million, the film was able to take in over $411 million in its worldwide, lifetime theatrical run.

In his review in Entertainment Weekly, film critic Owen Gleiberman described The Bodyguard as:

Glossy yet slack; it’s like Flashdance without the hyperkinetic musical numbers and with the romance padded out to a disastrously languid 2 hours and 10 minutes…To say that Houston and Costner fail to strike sparks would be putting it mildly. The two barely seem to be in the same room — the movie is like a discordant duet between their superstar auras.

I can’t argue with Gleiberman about his central point here: there is little to no chemistry between the Houston and Costner, and I don’t think that it is explained simply by Houston’s acting inexperience. After all, Houston wasn’t really an actress,  so I think it is hard to blame her for the lack of chemistry: she was supposed to be guided and carried by the other performers. And, to her credit, I think she put in one scene’s worth of a decent performance (in the country music bar).

In my opinion, I think the bigger problem for the movie is actually Kevin Costner. The more time I have spent rewatching movies from the early 90s for this blog, the more I feel like the entire world was weirdly hypnotized by Costner during the era, and everyone (for some reason) collectively agreed to the delusion that he was a great actor. Kevin Costner, for a time, was The Emperor’s New Clothes of actors. Looking back now, the truth as I see it is that Costner is and has always been a terrible, one-note actor. He is almost always portraying some form of stoic in his films, which is convenient for a guy who seems to struggle with emoting most of the time. Worse yet, I find him to be completely unbelievable as a bad-ass lead: his entire vibe and appearance screams “step-father trying to look cool,” which doesn’t really work for what was intended to be an analog for a Kurosawa samurai. In the hands of another actor – ideally someone with capabilities for both gravitas and intimidation – I think The Bodyguard might have been a pretty decent movie. As it stands, though, it is a rightfully forgotten popcorn flick that was clearly built around a soundtrack. If not for latent nostalgia and a culture-wide fondness for the music pf the soundtrack, I don’t think anyone could make much of an argument in favor of the film in retrospect.

If you have fond memories of this movie, I don’t recommend going back to it: it is bound to disappoint you. For everyone else, I think listening to the soundtrack without the context of the film is probably preferable to actually watching it – this is an overly long movie with some pretty bad performances, highlighted only by some awkwardly-placed interludes and music videos. Just cut the chaff, and check out the music on its own if you want to experience the cultural impact of The Bodyguard.