Guarding Tess

Being the First Lady isn't easy. But according to Guarding Tess, being a former First Lady is even worse. After all, with all of those snoopy, gun-waving Secret Service agents around, how is she supposed to get any shopping done? And what about the lousy treatment she gets from the president? He owes his career to her late husband, but the big lug still can't show up to the dedication of the presidential library.

Worse still, this former First Lady is stuck in central Ohio, Cripes! Jackie O. got New York and the jet set scene. Even Nancy Reagan got Rodeo Drive. What does this lady get? Sawmill Road?

Actually, that's about the sum of Guarding Tess. The movie has a few funny moments, a couple of cheap attempts at heart-string tugging and a very ill-conceived thriller plot line near its end. It's not exactly a Grumpy Old First Ladies, but Walter Matthau might have been an improvement in the title role.

Not that Shirley MacLaine is bad. To the contrary - she's too good for the part. She even manages to breath some life into this borderline caricature of an elderly widow who has nothing better to do with her time than tyrannize the Secret Service men who protect her, She's supposed to be a wounded soul full of strong, unbending ideals, but as the role is written, the character comes across as a petty egotist who needs relatively powerless people whom she can safely shove around.

Not that Nicolas Cage isn't shovable. As the head Secret Service agent assigned to this detail, he gives a flat performance as an uptight yup who's mostly concerned about his career stagnating in a dead-end job in mid-Ohio, Eventually, he comes to an understanding of MacLaine's eccentric behavior — but I still think that she should have just slugged him. If nothing else, it would have juiced up the movie.

It's no surprise that Guarding Tess plays like the set-up for a sit-com. Director Hugh Wilson is a far better producer of TV fare than he is a filmmaker. Perhaps he needs to realize that there isn't anything wrong with doing TV; Wilson is wasting his talents on the big screen.

And yes, Guarding Tess is the movie that, in theory, takes place in and around Columbus, but which was actually filmed in and around Baltimore, But that's not so surprising; many parts of Baltimore bear a striking resemblance to Parsons Avenue. It's a natural as a stand-in.