A Kevin Costner Flop With Ashton Kutcher Is Finding Fans Decades Later On Tubi

What are we to do in an age where streaming services are so crammed with content (yet never seem to have the movie I want) to the point we're paralysed by the tyranny of choice? Well, we can start by not paying for the privilege, and free streamer Tubi just happens to have what might be the most capacious catalog of media in the streaming game.

Fox's free service claims to offer "the largest collection of premium on-demand content," with an alleged 275,000 movies and TV episodes and more than 300 originals. That's more than anyone could watch in a lifetime, but at least we're not paying to mindlessly scroll the interface until we give up. What's more, if you let Tubi users be your guide, there's a ready-made watch list in the form of the top 10 charts. Don't be put off by the fact that Jennifer Garner's crime thriller flop "Peppermint" previously dominated the Tubi charts despite a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Throw caution to the wind and behold the comparative masterwork that is "The Guardian."

This 37-percenter isn't exactly a classic of the action drama genre, but it's apparently a heck of a lot better than "Peppermint." What is it? Well, it certainly isn't one of the best Kevin Costner films, but it is one of the Kevin Costner films. Is it worth watching? According to the Tubi viewers, yes, as the film has just snuck into the streamer's top 10.

If a film starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher conjures vague memories of a bonkers thriller where Costner is a serial killer with an imaginary friend, that's not "The Guardian," it's the one he did with Dane Cook. "The Guardian" is the one where Costner plays Coast Guard rescue swimmer Ben Randall, who lost his crew in a tragic accident and fills the void by training younger recruits. One of these recruits is swimming champion Jake Fischer (Kutcher), whom Randall mentors before taking him on a perilous mission in the Bering Strait.

Directed by Andrew Davis ("The Fugitive"), "The Guardian" didn't exactly impress critics upon its 2006 debut. But it has managed to impress Tubi viewers, who have now propelled the film into the streamer's top 10. "The Guardian" hit the platform on April 1, 2025, and took some time to be rescued from the tides of the content ocean. According to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks viewership across the various streaming platforms, the movie finally managed to crack the top 10 on April 18, 2025, when it snuck into the number 10 spot in the U.S. This marks the film's Tubi chart debut, and depending on how things go with other movies in the coming days, Costner's forgotten action drama might just stick around, giving the U.S. Coast Guard a small win after the movie itself managed to let them down. Should you join in with this particular rescue mission? That depends on your tolerance for a film that critics widely regarded as a bit too derivative to deserve much in the way of plaudits.

"The Guardian" wasn't the most disastrous movie Kevin Costner ever appeared in. That unfortunate honor goes to "Dragonfly," which, according to Rotten Tomatoes at least, is Costner's worst ever film and made just $52 million on a $60 million budget. But "The Guardian" isn't all that much better. It did at least make back its budget, bringing in $95 million worldwide on a $70 million budget. Still, studios typically need to double the budget just to break even, so "The Guardian" wasn't exactly a commercial success.

Meanwhile, critics just weren't impressed with Costner as the Coast Guard. David Germain of the Associated Press, for instance, wrote in his review that "The Guardian," "drags on like a slow boat ride to Anchorage, its standard-issue heroics and flavorless dialogue gone stale long before the movie arrives at the big, valorous finish." The "standard-issue" part seems to be the biggest issue with the movie, as other reviewers also pointed out the clichés littered throughout Andrew Davis' film, which, as it happens, would prove to be his last directorial effort. Descriptors such as "predictable" pop up quite a lot across the wide assortment of reviews aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes, with Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post perhaps summing things up best: "The movie begins to overload its frail reed of a structure with giant sloppages of cliches from other movies, some so bad it's almost comical."

Still, some people liked it. The New York Times' A.O. Scott summarized "The Guardian" as "a swaggering sea adventure, a home front melodrama and an inspiring tough-love heroic teacher fable." Then again, this is the man who helped give Rick Alverson's "The Comedy" its entirely unearned notorious reputation. What matters for us is that the Tubi guys liked it, and if it means we're not left scrolling our way into oblivion or facing the dreaded "buy or rent" screen, then it's probably worth a quick look.