My Bodyguard, not to be confused with the sudsy Costner-Huston thriller The Bodyguard, has been oft characterized to me as "the ultimate bully movie." While I'm too cynical to even toy with the idea that this feature-length Afterschool Special is the best at anything, the film has some merit as a teen revenge fantasy. Making his low-key directorial debut, Academy Award-winning producer Tony Bill brings visual grace sans style to this tale of the new kid in school and how he masterminds one bully's downfall through another's redemption.

Fuzzy Chris Makepeace stars as the appropriately named Clifford Peach, a hotel manager's son who transfers from private to public New York schools and, upon refusing to pay Melvin Moody (Matt Dillon) for "protection" (ostensibly from a homicidal classmate, but really himself), makes fast enemies of the baby-faced extortionist. A lad with keen instincts for self-preservation, Clifford has a brainstorm: he will hire the student Moody was to protect him from, Ricky (Adam Baldwin, whose restrained performance seems less felicitous on a second viewing), to be his bodyguard, thus putting the fear of God in Moody's crew.

It doesn't take clairvoyance to guess that the privileged Clifford and the flak-jacketed Ricky are destined to become buds--they're too opposite not to attract. Though Ricky is initially reluctant to befriend Clifford, in no small part because he feels he'd be replacing his recently deceased little brother with the precocious Cliff, he softens up, and soon the two are riding Ricky's vintage motorbike together down the side streets of Manhattan. Screenwriter Alan Ormsby has lifted the skeleton of Robert Cormier's young adult novel The Chocolate War (which Keith Gordon adapted into a terrific motion picture): an adolescent with a deceased mother and distant father (Martin Mull) throws off the balance of power at his academic institution by defying a longstanding tradition; he defends his ideals in a climactic fistfight. Too, Ricky recalls Cormier's creation Emile Janza, a brooding giant with his share of Achilles Heels.

These elements work great in My Bodyguard, as if they're archetypal; the film's unidentifiable material is dire by comparison. Clifford's home life at a posh hotel, where he cares for and is cared for in return by his horny, alcoholic grandmother (Ruth Gordon--who else?), is hardly a welcome respite from the school sequences: at the time of filming, Gordon was the creepiest actress alive (perhaps "animate" is more fitting), and her story thread is both aimless and noncomplementary to the central plot. Despite occasional lapses in taste and judgment, My Bodyguard reminds us of quality product. In addition, Bill's raw staging of the penultimate fisticuff, after Moody plays a trump card, has integrity.

My Bodyguard arrives on DVD under Fox's Family Feature banner. Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen on one side and in 1.33:1 fullscreen on the reverse, the transfer is inconsistent: shots miraculous for their subdued grain and controlled video levels are often interrupted by gritty, garish images. Overall, there's no mistaking My Bodyguard for a 22-year-old film here. The remastered Dolby Surround sound is pleasant to the ears, if largely indistinguishable from the original mono mix (also included). The original trailer and five TV spots round out the disc.-Bill Chambers