The 2022-2023 Film Journal Entry #9: "The Bodyguard"

2022-2023 Film Journal Entry #9

by Xavier E. Palacios

"The Bodyguard"

4 out of 5

Directed by Mick Jackson

Rated "R"

Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner), a stoic, unsocial, and esteemed veteran bodyguard, is hired to protect the mega-superstar singer and actress, Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston), from a mysterious stalker who threatens her and her family's life. While enhancing her daily security and protecting his client during her Oscar campaigning and concerts, Frank gets to know Rachel better, as well as her son, Fletcher (DeVaughn Nixon), her sister, Nikki (Michele Lamar Richards), and her management crew. Though initially the titular bodyguard and the starlet's opposing personalities keep the pair respectful but displeased with one another, they slowly fall in love, against their better judgement. All the while, Rachel's stalker never ceases his hunt, and the threat that either she or Frank may not survive this predator grows as strong as their affection for each other.

I have been meaning to watch this chick-flick classic of the 1990s, whose highly romanticized premise has long made me question the piece's quality and entertainment for my tastes, for a funny little reason. In the middle of my university years, thanks to some egregious and unforgiveable administrative screwups that permanently and negatively affected the course of my academic and post-graduate careers, I was forced to take a course that wound up giving me no graduation credit. A speech making class. As I had long been a stage actor by that point, the course was a piece of cake. The class was filled with very friendly freshman, including a young man who, because of his heavily accented Eastern European name, went by the nickname, "Momo".

Unfortunately, my memory has faded on the exact details of his family's origin, so I shall not recount specifics that are likely inaccurate, but Momo recounted to us that much of his extended family perished during a 1990s conflict in that region of the world. My recollection very much wishes to say the location was in the former Yugoslavia and thus he was referring to the Yugoslav Wars. Hearing and being in the presence of such solemness touched my heart greatly. After we sat down and chatted at the campus café one time, the good-hearted Momo and his family's history would influence the backstory for the protagonist of my space opera adventure drama, Cosmos.

Our second assignment in the course was to construct and deliver an informative speech. All we had to do was deliver a speech that described something; anything. Being the nerd I was, (well, still am, but who is counting?), I decided I wanted to give the class a crash course in the animation process. I do not begrudge my motivations. Innocently, I really wanted to share my love of the medium and showcase the magic of the art I loved; I wanted to reach out to others. Still, comically, I took what was supposed to be a simple assignment and made a bit of a mountain out of a mole hole hill. I was successful, but my speech was too densely structured, a little too complicated, and, given the context, too ostentatious to have really worked.

Shortly after my delivery, another student took her place in front of the class at the podium. She did not speak as well as I did, but her voice, pacing, and vocal character was much more natural and less convoluted than mine. If memory serves me right, she wore something much snappier than I did, like a kind of black, sharp office get-up that complimented her dark Black skin. I think she was also taller than me, or at least I felt so at the time.