Tempestuous 'Tess' Serves Light-Hearted Fare

Guarding Tess

directed by Hugh Wilson

starring Nicholas Cage and Shirley

MacLaine

Secret Service agents are inherently funny. This fact is the saving grace of "Guarding Tess." The basic premise is mindlessly simple: Special Agent Doug Chesnic (Nicholas Cage) guards eccentric former First Lady Tess Carlisle (Shirley MacLaine). Doug dreams of someday being in the line of fire, but dutifully performs "the worst job in the Secret Service" because the President wants him to.

You have already seen the best parts of the movie if you've seen the preview. They are all scenes of "seven well-trained, heavily armed men" like the grocery store (where they radio to each other for price checks on produce) or the golf course (where Mrs. Carlisle orders Doug to fetch her ball). In several scenes Doug and Tess engage in ridiculously immature exchanges--in which Doug threatens to leave, and Tess tells him to go, but everyone knows that she doesn't really want him to. Phone calls from a President with a Clinton-esque Southern accent keep Doug in line; the Commander-in-Chief tells Doug to stay with Tess, because "she's a national treasure, [even though]...she's a pain in the ass."

Thankfully, we get some diversion from this seemingly endless back-and-forth; however, it takes the form of a completely confusing kidnapping crisis, culminating in a fairly dramatic scene in which Doug finally gets to shoot a gun. Although this part of the plot has more action than the beginning of the film, it is so unbelievable and so hard to follow that the screenwriter would have done better to stick to the entertaining secret-service-meets-old-lady premise of this one-gag movie.

But then how else could the main characters learn to appreciate one another for who they really are? The kidnapping makes Special Agent Chesnic realize how much Tess means to him; he also finally gets to fulfill his active agent fantasies. She then realizes that she genuinely likes him, and not only because she can order him around. By the end of the movie, they have both overcome many of their prejudices and grown as individuals.

Several sub-plots come into the picture, but never follow through; we find out that Tess has an inoperable brain tumor, but that's the end of the story--it doesn't enter into the rest of the plot. Tess tears up when her sleazy son asks her to endorse a retirement complex, but we get no sense of the emotions behind this exchange.

As trite as the plot is, the main characters rescue it from oblivion. The trenchcoat-and-sunglass-clad, play-it-by-the-book Doug Chesnic is perfect contrast to the odd but kind Tess Carlisle. Several political references also spice up the dull script. Some are to past administrations, like when Tess says that all Agnew and Johnson ever did was play golf: "If was a blessing for the country." Others allude to Bill and Hillary. When Tess watches old news clips about her husband, the audience learns her Clinton-like history relatively painlessly. Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle met at Denison College--where she was president of their class. Later, when Tess and Doug have a heart-to-heart over a couple of highballs, we learn that her husband was less than faithful, but that they were still a political "team."

Basically, "Guarding Tess" is a good mindless flick. Enjoy watching several gun-toting men tiptoe around an old lady's flawlessly decorated house. Try to figure out the bizarre and rather sadistic plot twist. But whatever you do, don't think about the movie when it's over--or you'll realize that what seemed like a fun way to flow off an afternoon is really a grossly flawed attempt to milk a single joke for far too long.