| THE SENTINEL |
 2006 - USADirector: Clark Johnson
- Reviewed by Vickie
Feh. Despite all this, the reality is obvious: Michael Douglas is an old man and watching him go through the above escapades—and more—onscreen I couldn’t help but worry that he’d keel over from a heart attack at any moment. He stars as Pete Garrison (to be fair, the name comes from author Gerald Petievich’s novel on which the film is based), a revered Secret Service agent who was part of Reagan’s team way back when. These days, he’s guarding the current president (David Rasche) and having an affair with the comely First Lady, Sarah (Kim Basinger). Before you can say Viagra, Pete’s in a pickle: seems someone’s discovered his bedroom antics with Sarah and wants to use the info to blackmail him. Bummer. As if that wasn’t enough to put a strain on Pete’s ticker, his best friend (director Clark Johnson, in a cameo) is murdered and Pete’s implicated in what unfolds as a very vague plot to do something even more vague to the President. I think it might involve assassination, but I can’t be certain. Thrown into the mix are newbie agent Jill Marin (Eva Longoria), who’s teamed with Pete’s former best friend and now bitter Service rival, David Breckenridge (Keifer Sutherland). They’re out to solve the murder and unravel the details of the vague plot, and each has his or her own motivation for sorting matters: Jill admires Pete and his skill and doesn’t want to believe he’d be in cahoots with the bad guys, while David’s still peeved at Pete for a previous indiscretion that may or may not have happened, and is apparently unable to let go of the past. The point of the story, aside from the whole “Michael Douglas is still a vital young man, we swear!” angle, is simple: there’s a mole in the Secret Service and he or she is out to upset the presidency by feeding classified intel to nefarious sources. Why all this extra business crowds the plot is a mystery. The action unfolds in a very predictable, but still randomly engaging, fashion that pretty much removes suspense and occasionally gets confusing and choppy… such as the one and only scene with David’s wife, whose identity we have to guess at. The “villain” is obvious within the first ten minutes, and the revelation of the mole is massively anticlimactic. The problems lie in the film’s final third, when the story—and, more specifically, the dialogue—actually had people in the theater laughing at its inherent lameness. And don’t get me started on the ubiquitous sunglasses! I felt like I was watching a film sponsored by Ray-Ban. After a while, it became ridiculous. Pete’s sporting shades almost all the time, especially when indoors. During one chase sequence set inside a shopping mall, he loses track of a gun-toting suspect and I felt like screaming, “Maybe you’d be able to spot him if you TOOK OFF YOUR SUNGLASSES WHEN YOU’RE INSIDE!” Douglas huffs and puffs his way through his part but, again, I didn’t buy him as a rugged action star for a second. Clint Eastwood had a better take on this sort of character in films like In the Line of Fire or Blood Work, where his characters acknowledge that they’re not the men they once were. Here, though, we’re supposed to swallow a lot and it simply doesn’t go down easily. Mike, you’re what, 61 years old? Accept it, take some nice fatherly roles and let us all move on. |
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The Sentinel is a movie about trying to convince audiences that
Michael Douglas isn’t an old man. The filmmakers, and Douglas himself,
go to great lengths to convey this fact, by having his Secret Service
agent character enact young-guy things like doing sit-ups (feel the
burn, man!), sprinting headlong through all kinds of dangerous locales
(you’re a daredevil!), taking a bullet (!) and getting it on
with the hottie wife of the President of the United States (rowrr!).
Heck, they even bestow upon him a typical young-guy name: Pete! Pete’s
a go-getter! Pete’s a cool dude! Pete’s fun and athletic! I’m gonna go
to a ballgame with Pete and then we’re gonna go score some chicks at
the club! Pete and me!
