In a recent book review published in The Nation, Ari Kelman identifies a new genre that “seems to have arisen from the ruins of the World Trade Center: the cult of the first responder.” Of course, this has already been going on for a few years at the movies, with Ladder 49 and Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center the most obvious examples that come to mind.

The Guardian stars Kevin Costner as a veteran rescue swimmer who, according to legend, has a record number of saves to his credit. Ask him, though, and he’ll tell you that the only number he remembers are the ones he lost. Out on a seemingly futile mission, when one of his team says, “The rule book says it’s time we go home—what do you think?” he grimly replies, “When we go home, they die.” He’s just got rescuin’ in his blood, along with a generous dose of salt water from spending too little time with his frustrated wife and too much time in the drink. (Which raises he question: Why do they call the ocean “the drink” when the one thing you can’t do with it is drink it?)

When his superiors feel he needs a break (the guy is in his 50s, fercrissake), he glumly accepts as assignment at a training academy. Growling that “There’s a gap between training and what actually happens out there,” Costner develops a curriculum heavy on verisimilitude like having his recruits spend the night in a pool of ice water. (“You can count on spending approximately 60 percent of your career in a mildly hypothermic state,” he helpfully informs them as their testicles contract into raisins.)

If you have to have an actor reading lines like this (Want more? How about “You’ve got to figure out a way to be calm in the face of chaos”?), it may as well be Costner, whose characteristic underplaying at least won’t make it any worse than it already is. And if you want to make a story like this, you need a director like Davis, best known for The Fugitive, who knows that the secret to success in Hollywood is the ability to recycle clichés with panache—give audiences the same stuff they’re already seen a hundred times dressed up just enough to make them think they’re getting something new for their $8. As long as it aims at being a lightweight An Officer and a Gentleman (if you can picture Ashton Kutcher in the Richard Gere role), The Guardian is fine. Where it goes dreadfully wrong is in the final 20 minutes, when it tries to reach for epic proportions with a hugely ill-advised ending that comes out of nowhere and casts a pall over everything that came before it. If this is your kind of movie by all means check it out, but you might want to consider leaving after the graduation scene.