The Sentinel Review
Posted by Jacob Ziegler on 04.21.2006
Holster your weapon!
THE SENTINEL
April 21, 2006
Pete Garrison: Michael Douglas
David Breckinridge: Kiefer Sutherland
Jill Marin: Eva Longoria
William Montrose: Martin Donovan
Sarah Ballantine: Kim Basinger
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Clark Johnson. Screenplay by George Nolfi, based on the novel by Gerald Petievich. The running time is 108 minutes. It is rated PG-13 for some intense action violence and a scene of sensuality.
BY JACOB ZIEGLER, 411Movies
"The Sentinel" is a film that manages to be mildly entertaining for most of its running time, until a slew of stupidity ransacks its final five minutes. Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland (who is basically playing his Jack Bauer character from "24") give capable performances, but the film just doesn't have enough good material for them.
Since I had to look up the word "sentinel," I thought I should inform my readers that it means "One that keeps guard; a sentry." In this case, Michael Douglas is our title character, aging CIA agent Pete Garrison. Garrison's claim to fame is that he helped Ronald Reagan survive the assassination attempt in 1981. His protégé is David Breckinridge (Sutherland), who is now an investigator.
The story starts off a bit like Wolfgang Petersen's far superior "In the Line of Fire," as there is an assassination plot on the President. The twist is that there is a mole inside the CIA, and as the trailers certainly indicated, everyone thinks that Garrison is the culprit. The relationship Garrison and Breckinridge was strained several years ago, so it only makes sense that the student would go after the teacher, in this case.
The Breckinridge character is quit similar to Sutherland's Jack Bauer in many ways, only with worse dialogue. He actually says "a resume means nothing to me, and even less on the street" at one point. He is joined by Jill Marin (Eva Longoria of TV's "Desperate Housewives"), a hot young investigator. It seems as though Longoria's only reason for being in the film is to remind us that she is hot, because that is all that anyone seems to notice about her. Longoria seems much better suited to TV, as she didn't have much of a presence here at all; though in her defense the character was so shallowly written that I dare someone to try and get something meaningful out of it.
Director Clark Johnson ("S.W.A.T.") keeps the action moving at a fairly brisk pace, and at an hour and 48 minutes the film doesn't run long enough to wear out its welcome. The film operates on several different levels, acting as a chase film for a while, with the underlying mystery coming out in the last act. The final swerve isn't very satisfying, as given the nature of the movie one is taught to expect certain people to be the bad guys, and in this case it's exactly who the easiest suspect is. So while "Sentinel" is not a bad film by any means, it just suffers from being all too predictable, which makes it feel like everyone is just going through the motions.
"The Sentinel" is a film that will be forgotten before too long. Perhaps in a few years it will be on television or in a bargain bin and someone might vaguely recall it. It's unfortunate that its distinguishing characteristic is going to be the turgid final five minutes of the film, when just about everyone does something out of character (particularly Kim Basinger's First Lady) and the film just sputters to a close.
The 411: Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland headline a decent thriller that approaches mediocrity but can’t quite get beyond that It has some good stuff in it, but most of it is either too familiar or just plain too lame. Fans of “24” may get a kick out of Sutherland essentially bringing the character to the big screen, but it’s not likely to make much of an impression.
