So much average

I wanted to but couldn't!

Brilliant and touching

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I love where the movie take place (Chicago) , the actor choice is nice , and the soundtrack is well too . There is some funny scene who give a good look of the movie . The movie give a good picture from the bully at school who want money for a work , and the victim instead of tell this to an adult at school or his parents prefer give his lunch money instead of receiving a blow . But unfortunately some scene ( I will not mention them ) are gone bad and give an bad image of the movie , but i'll close my eyes thinking to it was an old movie . For conclusion I will say this is a good old movie with a good story and we can feel he want's to give an message .

When we saw "My Bodyguard", we were at school, in year 9 (senior in Junior High School), we were studying the problem of bullying. Our first impressions : the film looked very old (the kids have no mobiles, Clifford has a strange haircut, their clothes are typical eighties !)The actors are very talented : we preferred Clifford and Linderman. Moody looks very much like a school bully. The teachers are not realistic because our teachers would never be so lax.Overall, the film works because we identify with Clifford. We give the film a 9 out of 10.nochairocking57

I somehow missed this one in the 1980s. I was able to watch it via Netflix streaming movies. It is about a new kid at a Chicago public high school, 10th grade, and right away he encounters the local kid bully, who makes the weaker kids pay him every day for "protection." But the new kid refuses, and soon his time at school is made miserable by the bully and his friends.Chris Makepeace, who doesn't seem to have gone anywhere as an actor, was 15-yr-old Clifford. His mom had died, and his dad was the manager of a nice hotel in downtown Chicago. His eccentric grandmother lived with them. A very young and somewhat small Matt Dillon was the pretty boy bully, Moody. He played this role very well. But the one I liked most was Adam Baldwin, making his movie debut as the bigger, taller, but troubled student Linderman. None of the other kids wanted to get near him, and rumors were that he had killed people. But Clifford decided to befriend him, and ask him to be his "bodyguard", and in return he would pay him and help him with his homework. (Note, Baldwin, now in his 40s, is currently in a recurring role as a CIA agent in the TV series 'Chuck.') Another interesting young actress was a teenage Joan Cusack as one of the students, Shelley.Anyway the "bodyguard" thing didn't quite work out, Linderman didn't really want anything to do with that, but he and Clifford became friends anyway, and they went scrap yard hunting together, to find parts for an old motorcycle Linderman was rebuilding. Many of the scenes were shot in Lincoln Park, a place we visited a couple of years ago, it was fun seeing it from 30 years back.Nice movie, a chance to pull for the good guys. SPOILERS: The reason Linderman didn't want to get involved, he had accidentally been responsible for his kid brother getting shot and killed when the two of them were playing with a loaded pistol at home. Linderman lied to authorities, said he found the gun in his brother's hand, when in fact it was in his own hand when the shot was fired. So when Moody hired his own, somewhat older "bodyguard" Mike, in a confrontation in the park Linderman not only did not fight, he let them take his motorcycle, dump it in the pond, then he ran away. However after admitting to Clifford what his real issue was, in a second confrontation in the park, while retrieving his motorcycle, Linderman had to fight, and beat up Mike, while Clifford fought, and broke Moody's nose, with some coaching from Linderman. Thus the two bullies were neutralized and presumably all was going to be well.

Director Tony Bill's uneven "My Bodyguard" feels lumpy, half-stewed, and occasionally very awkward...still, it's not a bad little movie and has a good cast and many good ingredients. Chris Makepeace (the moony-eyed kid from "Meatballs") is a highly intelligent, thoughtful young actor with a nice grasp of character; though his role here (as the new kid in school who immediately runs afoul of the local bully) isn't at all fresh, Makepeace does well with the over-written lines and gives the picture a nicely grounded base. Matt Dillon glowers convincingly enough as Moody, the punk with slicked-back hair (this was Dillon's third movie after "Over the Edge" and "Little Darlings", and his career was on a roll, with the future-star showing a nice sense of selection picking quirky, unusual teen-oriented films to start off with). Adam Baldwin plays the hulking, scary loner Linderman whom Makepeace pays to be his bodyguard, and their friendship doesn't feel nearly as contrived as the basic set-up, leading to an absorbing second-half. On the other hand, Makepeace's home life (with dad Martin Mull running a swanky Chicago hotel and grandma Ruth Gordon causing her usual mischief) DOES feel contrived; Bill's rhythm is really off in these instances, and if he's trying for laughs here he certainly doesn't get them. Any comedy with Ruth Gordon in the cast should be a partial hoot (at least), but Bill doesn't seem to know what to do with his adult actors and they often look anxious for help. I'm not sure what message the finale is sending out (or attempting to send out), however the kids are rarely a pain and most of them do solid work, particularly Joan Cusack as another joyful oddball. Jennifer Beals, pre-"Flashdance", has a non-speaking part as a student yet really stands out from the crowd (and Bill's camera is obviously in love with her angelic face). ** from ****