Category Archives: PTSD

The Guardian (2006)

From NetFlix:

When legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall is appointed to teach at an elite Coast Guard school, he’s compelled to skillfully train and inspire cocky upstart Jake Fischer to excellence, courtesy of some unorthodox coaching methods.

If nothing else, just the sea rescue school sessions fascinated me. Also there are some exciting sea rescue scenes. Costner’s troubled marriage (he is married to sea rescue, the old story) is secondary to the plot.

Costner’s involvement with his student Jake Fischer is fitting, owing to similar past tragedies. One of their discussions could be a real tear-jerker.

Be prepared for one really wild final rescue.

Aston Kutcher (plays Jake Fischer) will play the lead role in the 2013 film “Jobs”. He was 28 during the filming. His film sidekick Brian Geraghty (plays Billy Hodge) played Brian Eller in the TV series “True Blood”. He was 31 during the filming. On the other hand Kevin Costner was 51 during the filming.

Just tell me a good story and I am a happy listener.

The Hunted (2003)

From NetFlix:

Tommy Lee Jones is Agent Bonhan, an FBI deep-woods tracker who captures an assassin (Benicio Del Toro) with a weird proclivity — he makes a sport of killing deer hunters. When the killer escapes in the city, Bonham must team up with another Bureau agent (Connie Nielsen) to hunt down the thrill killer before he starts to hunt them. William Friedkin directs.

Many Tommy Lee Jones films have a thought provoking theme or sub-theme. Interestingly enough, both In the Valley of Elah (2006) and this film “The Hunted” deal with the effects of warfare on the combatants. In the former the message was that after experiencing the violence of Irag the young military personnel became emotionally numb and could kill even their own without feeling any remorse. In “The Hunted” Tommy Lee Jones taught Benicio Del Toro to be an expert killer for the military to such a point that eventually Del Toro could not “turn off” and continued to kill in civilian life. Both films in their way are anti-war films.

In the second half of this film we watch Jones using the skills he taught in order to locate and capture Del Toro. Both men are expert trackers, woodsmen, trappers, survivors, fighters and killers. If you enjoy bloody hand to hand combat, then stay tuned for an exciting adventure.