Why it's nowhere near CASABLANCA

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2002)

This fairly well-constructed movie/music collage is rather dated as my wife and I watched it again July 2002. The 10-year gap wherein some of the plot deficiencies would be unbelievable nowadays makes this seem "long ago in a legendary land." The "Mine" club scene especially seems like a 1930's kind of gag since passing a grown woman in a kind of "mosh" setting would never really happen with such a harmless, happy ending. Being stranded at the remote family hideaway with no lines of communication or emergency back-up plan also seems pre-World War II. To enjoy this movie one must enjoy the pop sound of Ms. Houston as well as tolerate the country (light) music of "I will always love you." It is admittedly wacky when it dissects the Oscar/Academy Awards facade; after all, nobody ever really muffs their lines when the television audience is 2 billion viewers, really (??). This movie should never get serious consideration for telling its viewers that much about "LOVE" as does a much better but still "dated" movie: Casablanca (director Michael Kurtiz). I believe that BODYGUARD is alluding to it in its choice for an airport penultimate scene; neither principle actor in the 1992 casting approaches the sensuality and romantic extremes of Bergman and Bogart. Who is the "third" side of the LOVE Triangle in this subtextual riff? Probably the Bodyguard's own sublimated Father-figure aspect with the Diva's son. That kid is left adrift in more ways than one in the course of the movie -- whether he can swim and just what the "name" of the Diva's nominated movie is seem to be not very solid at different points of the screenplay. For its strengths of music and comedy (sometimes inadvertent), I give it an "8" out of 10 star rating.