November 30, 1992 -- ``The Bodyguard'' a film starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, should have been a perfect star vehicle for Whitney Houston, but the vehicle is a lemon.

The film suffers from a surprisingly bad script by the ordinarily reliable Lawrence Kasdan (``The Big Chill''). The film demonstrates that the lovely Whitney Houston can not only sing, she can act. Unfortunately, the character she portrays in the film is given to ridiculous mood swings.

Costner's low-key performance is not very inspiring, either. The love story involving Houston and Costner doesn't work and fizzles without an emotional payoff at the end of the film.

The story involves Costner, a bodyguard who is hired to protect Houston, a pop singer, from an obsessive fan. The ``whodunit'' part of plot, finding the hired killer, works well enough. And, of course, Houston's singing performances are excellent, but there aren't enough of them.

There is also some good suspense at the end of the film. A nice friendship develops between Costner and Houston's young son and her other bodyguard. There are some good moments in the film and it is entertaining, but its plot is so muddled, wrongheaded and out of focus that it spoils the film debut of Whitney Houston and soils the record of co-producers Kevin Costner and Lawrence Kasdan, who should have known better than let this turkey get off the ground without another re-write.

This film rates a C-.

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