Guarding Tess (DVD, 1998, Includes Theatrical Trailer; Closed Caption)

What do you get when you put a crusty, self-determined ex-First Lady, Tess(Shirley MacLaine), who is forced to be in every day contact with a dead-pan serious and bored to death Secret Service Agent (Nicolas Cage) assigned to guard Tess as a "national treasure" by the current President of the United States? Sharp comical embattlements that she almost always wins, except one.

Cage wants to be a real Secret Service Agent involved in street action with his trusty gun, a gun he is required to leave outside of Maclaine's bedroom, where most of their unrelenting satirical encounters occur. Cage feels diminished to a trained professional leading a crew to do detail work that involves finding out which aisle peas are on in the grocery store.

Tess feels her privacy is constantly invaded, too old to care for herself, so she acts out big time by stubbornly refusing to sit in the limousine where she is most protected and supposed to be, for instance. Cage orders the chauffeur to turn the motor off until she complies with Secret Service rules and is buckled into the appropriate seat. Score one for the Agent. And that's how it goes throughout the film. One comical struggle after another.

Though the top Secret Service guy on detail (Cage) is humiliated by performing such menial tasks, he's developed a close attachment to the former First Lady. And she has done likewise with him.

When Tess really is kidnapped, Cage finally earns her respect and his self-esteem.