Ashton Kutcher’s Top Gun (aka The Guardian)

Ashton Kutcher’s Top Gun (aka The Guardian) is one of those unique films that is a mirror of itself. It stars Kevin Costner as a well-decorated hero who doesn’t know what the fuck he did to end up with the sorry task of instructing Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher is young buck who can’t believe how lucky he is to have Costner as a teacher. The weird thing is I’m sure the actors’ sentiments are exactly what their characters are feeling. I’m sure Costner must wonder what the fuck happened between The Untouchables and this film, and Kutcher must be amazed that he gets to be in a movie with Mr. Dances With Wolves himself. Maybe Costner just chuckles to himself about how he got to make out with Whitney Houston before she went all mental and considers himself to have led a good life. I hope so.

Kutcher doesn’t exactly have the most impressive resume. He made a movie called The Butterfly Effect about this guy who got raped as a child grows up to have Dr. Who powers resulting from literacy. The powers take him to jail where he gets raped by Nazis and then back to his own childhood to get raped again and then back to his adulthood where he finds out that his fellow childhood rape victims have grown up to get raped as prostitutes. He also made the same movie with less raping and a few less Nazis and it was called Dude Where’s My Car. His career highlight so far has been putting whoopee cushions under Justin Timberlake’s chair.

But Kutcher steps up his game in this flick. Now acting at Tara Reid level he really proves that he’s ready to play with the big boys and I think in a couple of years he could mature into this generation’s Andrew McCarthy. Until then I guess he’s got to keep paying the bills by giving Britney Spears wedgies and spraying fart spray on Topher Grace or whatever.

This film isn’t that funny on a scene-by-scene basis. The main running gag is this militaristic need to punctuate some sentences with OOH-RAH! But there’s an unspoken rule as to when it’s applied. My ESL teacher hasn’t been any help in telling me when and when not to OOH-RAH a sentence. I would’ve appreciated a scene with the troops in English class learning this stuff. Maybe have them reading Green Eggs and Ooh-rah!, or The Hardy Boys: Trouble at Ooh-rah Lake.

The other running gag is the cliché-ridden flashbacks of a time when Costner let his partner die. You get everything: dramatic red lighting, shaky cam, low frame rate, partner holding out hand and screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” in slow motion as he gets sucked to his death. I would’ve preferred a slow motion “OOOOOOOOOHHHH-RRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” as he plummeted to his death, but whatevs.

The guys in this movie want to work on the coast guard. The job interview is really long and involves holding a bucket over your head while Kevin Costner sprays you in the face with a hose. At least they don’t ask you any bullshit about “a time when you’ve resolved a conflict” or stupid questions that make you say you’re a perfectionist or a workaholic or some shit. Ooh-rah!

The really funny thing about this movie is that it’s not about what you think it’s about. Allow me to elaborate. The film spends a couple hours showing how Costner doesn’t think Kutcher has what it takes in this coast guard academy and Kutcher proving him wrong. Then Kutcher graduates and you think that’s the end of the movie. Ya know, like a movie about a guy proving something. Like Rocky or Boogie Nights or something. Okay. NOT BY A FUCKING LONGSHOT!

It goes on to have Kutcher work as Costner’s partner. Costner has a panic attack brought on by some of the poorly edited flashbacks and Kutcher saves him. Okay, a movie about a guy who learns the value of training a younger generation. NO FUCKING WAY! YOU’RE WAY OFF! They may fade to black, but this shit ain’t over! Let’s roll! OOH-RAH!

They then pick up on an earlier plotline where Costner’s wife filed for divorce against him because she said it was either her love as a wife OR his demanding career as a coastal guardian. He chose his career at the beginning of the film. Then Costner goes and finally signs the divorce papers and tells her their marriage is over. He then goes down to the coast guard lodge and resigns. So you’d think it’s a movie about a guy who just doesn’t fucking get how ultimatums work. NO, YOU’RE WRONG AGAIN! Misunderstanding ultimatums is just a hobby of Costner’s. Choices suck, that shit is for losers who don’t fly helicopters! OOH-RAH!

But then Kutcher gets trapped in a sinking ship because he made an error in judgement trying to be a hero. Costner decides to come out of retirement to rescue him because all the other coast guardians are too busy holding jugs above their heads and spraying each other in the face with hoses and ooh-rahing. So then Costner saves Kutcher but dies doing so. Kutcher finally learns the lesson Costner was trying to teach him the whole movie about having to let some people die and not be hero. But if you think that’s the movie you’re getting then you’re nowhere near how awesome this film gets!

Kutcher suddenly starts narrating! I love narration! After all, books use it. Books where pretty big for a while. Fuck, even Oprah reads some of them. I think it’s a sign of a great director that when you have images and sounds to tell a story that you go that extra step for your audience and tell them exactly what’s going on with speechification.

But what is Kutcher narrating about? You won’t fucking believe me. I’ll tell you, but you’ll go and rent it just to see if I’m full of shit. And I’m not, but I wouldn’t believe this either so I see where you’re coming from. Kutcher starts telling us that Costner has become a magical ghost and legend has it that he swims around in the sea and hugs people who are getting cold. Locals have even named the ghost “The Guardian” because they don’t know whose spirit it is.

Costner’s ghost must have hugged a lot of people really fast because the legend of the ghost is actually being discussed at his funereal. The guy’s not even in the ground and he’s already up there with Anne Boleyn as a well known ghost. One time there was this guy in my city trying to hug women on the bicycle path and the cops caught him after two weeks. So I guess this kind of shit really gets peoples attention in a way that saying “Boo!” just doesn’t.

But this isn’t a ghost story either. Fooled you! That ghost part was in the movie, but that was just a little tangent to piss that M. Night Shyamalan guy off. This story ends up on the best note of all! Kutcher finishes his investigation of the paranormal and decides that what he has to do is go back to the village where he did his training and marry the woman with whom he had a casual sex arrangement. She always refused to meet him in public and wasn’t into the whole conversation thing; so Kutcher figures that a woman like that doesn’t come along twice in a lifetime.

That’s right! Don’t let the trailers fool you! Don’t let those two hours of helicopters and training montages fool you either. Don’t even get fooled by the ghost story. This is a movie about marrying your fuck buddy. OOH-RAH!