An open letter of apology to Ashton Kutcher

The Guardian.

I saw it. I liked it. I have apologies to offer. It has been my general opinion that Mr. Kutcher would have absolutely no ability to act his way out of a paper sack...If he were to ever find himself in a paper sack and acting were somehow the key to exiting the afore-mentioned sack. This Saturday I saw The Guardian. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

First and last impression is that this is very high budget recruiting tool for the U.S. Coast Guard. I would be curious to see it their recruiting numbers had been down preceding this films conception. I would not be surprised to find that recruiting was lacking and that it will certainly go up after this movie. It very effectively showed the U.S.C.G. flag and colors for an enormous bulk of the film. The end credits raise this not so subtle recruiting ad to all new heights as the rock and roll background music pounds in rhythm with the spinning rotors of rescue choppers and bouncing C.G. cutters. Gratuitous is the term, I believe.

The second aspect of this film that stood out was the gratuitous paramilitary training portrayal, which accounted for more than half of the movie's running time. I was particularly interested in this portion of the film because I am enrolled in a paramilitary training program right now. I am a member of a training class that has now lost 12 of our original fifty trainees to assorted real and imagined physical ailments. These have ranged from stress fractures and kidney failure, to delusions of rare diseases which cause toxin build up in seldom worked muscle tissue. I personally believe that at least 7 of our 12 losses were primarily "mental-weakness" related. (Translation: They wimped out and faked an injury) This is a result of the intentionally inflicted artificial stress that our instructors try to make a constant feature of training.

The best example of this is the opening scene. The opening credits roll as a large group of wide-eyed recruits roll up to waiting stone faced instructors. I exchanged significant knowing glances with the trainees who went to the movie with me. And when the first instructor boarded the bus and began yelling out his impossible expectation that the bus be empty and immaculate in 15 seconds; we burst out laughing, having heard those exact words just 7 weeks before when we had arrived at training, just as wide-eyed, in our own little bus.

I was not overly offended by the improbable twists and turns of the plot that forced the main characters into reliving past traumatic moments a little too conveniently. This is the stuff of Hollywood. I would have been more bothered if the wise old retired mentor (Kevin Costner) had not luckily been present to head a rescue mission, when his star pupil with whom he had shared his tears, beers and bar-fights, found himself trapped in a sinking ship. I could have done without the sub-plot concerning the divorce of Costner's character. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A TOUGH DANGEROUS CAREER TO WHICH ONE IS DEDICATED AND STILL BE A SWEET HUSBAND WHO CONSIDERS HIS FAMILY AS WELL AS THOSE HE BRAVELY SERVES PROFESSIONALLY. Some day someone will make a boring film where this is appropriately portrayed.

I have procrastinated the apologies long enough. Ashton, I apologize to you. I have always been baffled by your fame and popularity, and frankly I have been incredibly annoyed by every character you have ever portrayed in any film I have seen you in. Only now do I realize that this may have been a mark of your true acting prowess. Your character was supposed to annoy me, and you did your job so well that I began to associate those feelings of annoyance with you in general. Having now seen you play a role that was not heavily seasoned with inane exaggerations of your character’s unabashed idiocy, I see that you can in fact act your way out of a paper sack were that to become necessary. This is fortuitous because I will no longer be forced to kidnap you and imprison you in such a sack to prove my point. In short I am sorry Ashton. I misjudged you. While I will still avoid the vast majority of your inanely ignorant films, I truly enjoyed your performance in this film and hope to see you again in a film where "Dude!!!" does not constitute fully half of your character’s dialogue.