By Kunal SavkurPLAY Writer

TV trailers for The Guardian hail it as the action movie event of the fall, but they lie. Less than 15 of its 136 minutes are packed with action. For a movie about Coast Guard rescue divers, one would expect more.

Kevin Costner plays Ben Randall, a Coast Guard rescue diver who’s achieved legendary status. And like all legends, he has family problems. His wife is leaving him because he’s too busy saving lives.

After a failed rescue attempt wipes out his entire team, Ben decides to get out of the field and train the next batch of young rescue divers. He’s harsh on his new students, forcing them to sit in a pool filled with blocks of ice as he teaches them about hypothermia.

One of Ben’s students is Paul Fischer (Ashton Kutcher). Of course, the two get into arguments and later form a heartfelt teacher-student relationship. But there’s no dynamic to this duo – surprisingly their interactions aren’t exciting.

Ben wants to get back with his wife, but there’s only one or two scenes where he tries to do so. And Paul doesn’t seem to want anything. He’s so bland and uninteresting it’s hard to feel anything for his character.

When the two finally clash in a scene in Ben’s office, we’re happy to see the outburst of emotion. But the scene becomes unintentionally funny because of Kutcher’s inability to handle dramatic acting – “Punk’d” was drama, but not that kind of drama.

The visually impressive rescue scenes occur only at the beginning and end of the film. And the ending is so ridiculously overdone and repulsive that you wonder why anyone agreed to film it.

Director Andrew Davis (Collateral Damage) doesn’t seem to know what direction to take with this movie. So we get glimpses of sentimental military drama, action-adventure and a love story. That’s the primary issue with The Guardian – it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be.

Grade: C