Some films just sound more promising than they turn out to be. Despite having a good cast and an interesting premise, "The Sentinel" feels like those shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Everything seems real enough, but somehow you get the feeling that the real/ideal thing lies in the brighter archives of the film world.
Michael Douglas plays Secret Service hero Pete Garrison, one of the agents who took a bullet intended for President Reagan way back in 1981. Now he's a respected veteran who's still on White House detail. Only he's closer to the First Lady than he is to President Ballentine (David Rasche). In a refreshing twist, it's Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger) who's having an affair, not the Prez, but even this is played out with the same lack of intensity or emotion that seems to cloud over "The Sentinel."
When a fellow agent and best buddy is assassinated on the front steps of his brownstone, and when the Presidential helicopter is blasted out of the Camp David skies by a rocket, the Secret Service realizes that there's a mole on the inside. It was Abraham Lincoln who formed the Secret Service, and during the course of 141 years there's never been a traitor. Now there are two?
Surprisingly, no one thought to give these important civil servants a lie-detector test before they were given access to the nation's most powerful people, but it seems like a no-brainer now to require all of them to submit to polygraph testing. Naturally, since Garrison has something to hide--his affair with the First Lady--he fails the test and suddenly finds himself tailed by a pair of agents. Just as suddenly, his most innocent moves raise suspicions, and then the predictable happens: Garrison has to go underground, with all of the government agents in D.C. after his ass.
Did that language shock you? It did me as I wrote it, but it's probably not a fair way to describe the tone and level of action in this film, which doesn't really make it as a political thriller. A closer way to describe what happens is that "all of the government agents in the nation's capitol pursue him." Routinely. For a film that has the Presidential copter shot from the skies and a First Lady engaged in an affair, this one is surprisingly devoid of emotional intensity. Even when investigators David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) and newbie partner Jill Marin (Eva Longoria) enter the picture, it still feels as if everyone had punched a time clock and couldn't wait until they heard that five o'clock whistle.
You get the feeling that the filmmakers felt the lack of energy, and tried a few tricks to spice things up--like a few weird split screens, including one top/bottom with stretched/distorted images. But that's all cosmetic, and too infrequent to make much of a difference. There are just too many things that don't feel right, like a sleazy informer who seems better suited to reveal participants in a child pornography ring than a sophisticated attempt to assassinate the President. And on more than a few occasions, there are lines that call attention to themselves as being flat or just not right, while the direction doesn't help much. "I've got a theory I want to float by you," Garrison's friend says. That should be enough for us to suspect this guy is going to get popped before he can share his theory, but director Clark Johnson doesn't trust the audience enough and so he adds ominous music. And just in case that isn't enough, he has the man glance up into the security camera and we get a long reaction shot.
Michael Douglas plays Secret Service hero Pete Garrison, one of the agents who took a bullet intended for President Reagan way back in 1981. Now he's a respected veteran who's still on White House detail. Only he's closer to the First Lady than he is to President Ballentine (David Rasche). In a refreshing twist, it's Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger) who's having an affair, not the Prez, but even this is played out with the same lack of intensity or emotion that seems to cloud over "The Sentinel."
When a fellow agent and best buddy is assassinated on the front steps of his brownstone, and when the Presidential helicopter is blasted out of the Camp David skies by a rocket, the Secret Service realizes that there's a mole on the inside. It was Abraham Lincoln who formed the Secret Service, and during the course of 141 years there's never been a traitor. Now there are two?
Surprisingly, no one thought to give these important civil servants a lie-detector test before they were given access to the nation's most powerful people, but it seems like a no-brainer now to require all of them to submit to polygraph testing. Naturally, since Garrison has something to hide--his affair with the First Lady--he fails the test and suddenly finds himself tailed by a pair of agents. Just as suddenly, his most innocent moves raise suspicions, and then the predictable happens: Garrison has to go underground, with all of the government agents in D.C. after his ass.
Did that language shock you? It did me as I wrote it, but it's probably not a fair way to describe the tone and level of action in this film, which doesn't really make it as a political thriller. A closer way to describe what happens is that "all of the government agents in the nation's capitol pursue him." Routinely. For a film that has the Presidential copter shot from the skies and a First Lady engaged in an affair, this one is surprisingly devoid of emotional intensity. Even when investigators David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) and newbie partner Jill Marin (Eva Longoria) enter the picture, it still feels as if everyone had punched a time clock and couldn't wait until they heard that five o'clock whistle.
You get the feeling that the filmmakers felt the lack of energy, and tried a few tricks to spice things up--like a few weird split screens, including one top/bottom with stretched/distorted images. But that's all cosmetic, and too infrequent to make much of a difference. There are just too many things that don't feel right, like a sleazy informer who seems better suited to reveal participants in a child pornography ring than a sophisticated attempt to assassinate the President. And on more than a few occasions, there are lines that call attention to themselves as being flat or just not right, while the direction doesn't help much. "I've got a theory I want to float by you," Garrison's friend says. That should be enough for us to suspect this guy is going to get popped before he can share his theory, but director Clark Johnson doesn't trust the audience enough and so he adds ominous music. And just in case that isn't enough, he has the man glance up into the security camera and we get a long reaction shot.
Some films just sound more promising than they turn out to be. Despite having a good cast and an interesting premise, "The Sentinel" feels like those shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Everything seems real enough, but somehow you get the feeling that the real/ideal thing lies in the brighter archives of the film world.
Michael Douglas plays Secret Service hero Pete Garrison, one of the agents who took a bullet intended for President Reagan way back in 1981. Now he's a respected veteran who's still on White House detail. Only he's closer to the First Lady than he is to President Ballentine (David Rasche). In a refreshing twist, it's Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger) who's having an affair, not the Prez, but even this is played out with the same lack of intensity or emotion that seems to cloud over "The Sentinel."
When a fellow agent and best buddy is assassinated on the front steps of his brownstone, and when the Presidential helicopter is blasted out of the Camp David skies by a rocket, the Secret Service realizes that there's a mole on the inside. It was Abraham Lincoln who formed the Secret Service, and during the course of 141 years there's never been a traitor. Now there are two?
Surprisingly, no one thought to give these important civil servants a lie-detector test before they were given access to the nation's most powerful people, but it seems like a no-brainer now to require all of them to submit to polygraph testing. Naturally, since Garrison has something to hide--his affair with the First Lady--he fails the test and suddenly finds himself tailed by a pair of agents. Just as suddenly, his most innocent moves raise suspicions, and then the predictable happens: Garrison has to go underground, with all of the government agents in D.C. after his ass.
Did that language shock you? It did me as I wrote it, but it's probably not a fair way to describe the tone and level of action in this film, which doesn't really make it as a political thriller. A closer way to describe what happens is that "all of the government agents in the nation's capitol pursue him." Routinely. For a film that has the Presidential copter shot from the skies and a First Lady engaged in an affair, this one is surprisingly devoid of emotional intensity. Even when investigators David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) and newbie partner Jill Marin (Eva Longoria) enter the picture, it still feels as if everyone had punched a time clock and couldn't wait until they heard that five o'clock whistle.
You get the feeling that the filmmakers felt the lack of energy, and tried a few tricks to spice things up--like a few weird split screens, including one top/bottom with stretched/distorted images. But that's all cosmetic, and too infrequent to make much of a difference. There are just too many things that don't feel right, like a sleazy informer who seems better suited to reveal participants in a child pornography ring than a sophisticated attempt to assassinate the President. And on more than a few occasions, there are lines that call attention to themselves as being flat or just not right, while the direction doesn't help much. "I've got a theory I want to float by you," Garrison's friend says. That should be enough for us to suspect this guy is going to get popped before he can share his theory, but director Clark Johnson doesn't trust the audience enough and so he adds ominous music. And just in case that isn't enough, he has the man glance up into the security camera and we get a long reaction shot.
Michael Douglas plays Secret Service hero Pete Garrison, one of the agents who took a bullet intended for President Reagan way back in 1981. Now he's a respected veteran who's still on White House detail. Only he's closer to the First Lady than he is to President Ballentine (David Rasche). In a refreshing twist, it's Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger) who's having an affair, not the Prez, but even this is played out with the same lack of intensity or emotion that seems to cloud over "The Sentinel."
When a fellow agent and best buddy is assassinated on the front steps of his brownstone, and when the Presidential helicopter is blasted out of the Camp David skies by a rocket, the Secret Service realizes that there's a mole on the inside. It was Abraham Lincoln who formed the Secret Service, and during the course of 141 years there's never been a traitor. Now there are two?
Surprisingly, no one thought to give these important civil servants a lie-detector test before they were given access to the nation's most powerful people, but it seems like a no-brainer now to require all of them to submit to polygraph testing. Naturally, since Garrison has something to hide--his affair with the First Lady--he fails the test and suddenly finds himself tailed by a pair of agents. Just as suddenly, his most innocent moves raise suspicions, and then the predictable happens: Garrison has to go underground, with all of the government agents in D.C. after his ass.
Did that language shock you? It did me as I wrote it, but it's probably not a fair way to describe the tone and level of action in this film, which doesn't really make it as a political thriller. A closer way to describe what happens is that "all of the government agents in the nation's capitol pursue him." Routinely. For a film that has the Presidential copter shot from the skies and a First Lady engaged in an affair, this one is surprisingly devoid of emotional intensity. Even when investigators David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) and newbie partner Jill Marin (Eva Longoria) enter the picture, it still feels as if everyone had punched a time clock and couldn't wait until they heard that five o'clock whistle.
You get the feeling that the filmmakers felt the lack of energy, and tried a few tricks to spice things up--like a few weird split screens, including one top/bottom with stretched/distorted images. But that's all cosmetic, and too infrequent to make much of a difference. There are just too many things that don't feel right, like a sleazy informer who seems better suited to reveal participants in a child pornography ring than a sophisticated attempt to assassinate the President. And on more than a few occasions, there are lines that call attention to themselves as being flat or just not right, while the direction doesn't help much. "I've got a theory I want to float by you," Garrison's friend says. That should be enough for us to suspect this guy is going to get popped before he can share his theory, but director Clark Johnson doesn't trust the audience enough and so he adds ominous music. And just in case that isn't enough, he has the man glance up into the security camera and we get a long reaction shot.
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