Plot: What’s it about?
For those of you who don’t know, this movie was orignally supposed to be made about fifteen years earlier, starring Steve McQueen. However, it wasn’t…Kevin Costner followed up his role in “JFK” with this action/drama with first time actress, Whitney Houston. Whitney plays Rachael Marion, basically herself. She is the hottest pop star at the moment, and is being threatned by obsessed fans. She then decides to enlist the help of a professional bodyguard (Costner). Needless to say, the two don’t hit if off right away. Costner has to be convinced and has to convince her to let him do his job.
Frank (Costner) immediately starts to make changes around the outside of the house, cutting trees, installing security systems (that work), and so on…This causes some tension between Rachael, her publicist and manager. Frank proves himself in a few early situations and thus shows that he does know what he’s doing.
To get away from it all, they go up to Frank’s father’s house in the woods, certain that they’ve left behind whatever psycho was after Rachael. Wrong! It turns out that someone (and I won’t say who) has paid someone to kill Rachael, at any cost.
That was the action part of the movie, but this really is more of a romance movie, too. The tension between Racheal and Frank is as thick as can be, but the two eventually start falling for each other. I personally think that Costner’s acting was even more non-shallant that usual, but how flamboyant does a bodyguard actually need to be!
Needless to say, after many false alarms of attacks on her life, trust nearly destroyed…it all comes to a head. Among other things, this movie features a soundtrack that is outstanding, especially if you’re a Whitney Houston fan. I watch this movie often, a good movie.
Video: How does it look?
A full frame transfer from Warner, they don’t do that anymore unless it’s one of their “bargain” titles. I’m hoping that they might re-release the movie in a 16:9 version, like they did with Bonnie and Clyde. The old laserdisc was letterboxed, but had only Dolby Surround, this is full frame with a 5.1 Soundtrack. It comes down to this…what’s more important, picture or sound?
Audio: How does it sound?
Warner gave this film a 5.1 soundtrack and it sounds great. Since I last reviewed this movie, I watched the movie again. There are plenty of directional effects and during song scenes (which, there are many), all five channels are in use. It really has a good spread over all the channels.
Supplements: What are the extras?
A few pages of production notes and some cast bios, other than that…
