Martin Bradley A fairly dull conspiracy thriller which, despite a first-rate cast, never really did the business and is now largely forgotten. Michael Douglas is the Secret Service agent who is having an affair with the First Lady and is then set up as the prime suspect in a plot to assassinate the President. Other agents involved include Kiefer Sutherland, (very good), Eva Longoria, (totally wasted), and a thoroughly dislikeable Martin Donovan while the President is a barely seen David Rasche and Kim Basinger, the First Lady.Of course, what's happening in and around the White House at the moment far outweighs the dull shenanigans on display here and if Trump might seem like the Devil Incarnate, at least he is a lot more colourful, (and dangerous), than anyone involved in this picture. As a thriller it's watchable enough though I can just imagine what someone like Brian DePalma might have done with this material.

stock-1 Someone reviewed with 'Director should stick with TV movies'. Well guess what he's come up with later .. one of the best rated TV-movies ever, Homeland. What makes a film different from a TV-movie? The time spent on details, sets, castings etc.. Apart from telling a Pulitzer price story The Sentinel has just done that. The casting is superb. At the end of the movie the Presidents reaction when finding out the First Lady is having an affair with the sentinel is not shown, which many find a big miss in the ending. It then indeed drops The Sentinel back to a TV movie, for the average viewer. Clark Johnson could have added a bullshit reason as to why Pete Garrison was sent on his premature retirement. The ending is displayed from the viewpoint of a mid-level security agent, who might never find out in the rest of his career that the Presidents wife was actually having an affair, while being under siege from a couple of Russian terrorists , apparently ex-KGB types who after their organization was disbanded have gone rogue. Again the reason for trying to assassinate the President is not given. Some then claim that because of this the sentinel is a poor movie. I disagree, as the sentinel actually tells a very realistic story, when Walter Xavier is warning Garrison about an upcoming attempt to assassinate the President. What happened is that the Russian terrorists, knowing he's Garrison best informant, started their whole game by approaching Xavier as their first move, which is exactly how these types operate. Again the details of this are not in the movie itself. Does that make it a bad movie ? I disagree.

Leofwine_draca THE SENTINEL is one of those cookie-cutter thrillers that's already been made before. In this film's case, it's a virtual reprise of IN THE LINE OF DUTY, with Michael Douglas taking on the Eastwood role of the dedicated presidential bodyguard battling wits with an assassin.The film could almost write itself, and sadly it turns out to be an absolutely generic Hollywood outing. Douglas is as strong as ever in a 'wronged man' type role, but everything that happens - every sub-plot, every little twist and turn - is so familiar, so predictable, so well choreographed in advance - that the ensuing film is difficult to like.THE SENTINEL throws plenty of stuff into the mix in hopes to make it stick. The most blatant is an extraneous Eva Longoria, added in an attempt to sex things up. Next up is Kiefer Sutherland, straight off the set of 24 and playing a similarly dedicated character.There are a handful of decent action sequences but Clark Johnson (also responsible for the similarly generic S.W.A.T.) is a letdown as director and there just isn't enough in the way of verve or style to make this in the least bit memorable. At least VANTAGE POINT had more going for it with the attempts at multiple points of view...

Critical Eye UK . . . there was a discussion of how to translate a quite acceptable little novel into a $60 million star-studded movie. It went something like this (note: *EVERYTHING* that follows is a spoiler) Green Light Person (GLP): So. . . it's a movie about a plot to kill the President and the twist is, the assassins are being helped by an insider in the Secret Service itself.Pitcher: Yup. It's a zinger. The bad guys set up the movie's hero as the mole to deflect attention from the real mole.GLP: So after the assassination, the hero is on the run, trying to clear his name. Yes?P: Oh no. He's on the run before the assassination.GLP: So how does anyone know there's a mole if the assassination hasn't happened? P: The assassins tell everyone.GLP: Er, right. OK. But why raise the very idea of a mole? P: Well, um.. . If they didn't, then the hero wouldn't be framed. And then he wouldn't be chased everywhere.GLP: Ah. OK. So. . . the assassins with a mole let it be known they're going to kill the President thanks to help from a mole who isn't actually their mole but a different mole who isn't really a mole anyway. P: Exactly. Simple as that.GLP: Doesn't that strike you as, um. . . Odd? P: Ah, but. . . They're foreigners. The assassins. So they're bound to be odd.GLP: As well as incredibly stupid.P: Stupid? Hardly. They're incredibly clever. They spend a lot of time following our hero and use hi-tech surveillance to photograph him and the First Lady getting it on. The pictures, you see, are to blackmail our hero.GLP: Into doing what? P: Er, well, we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet.GLP: O-kay. . . So. They photograph our hero because they know of his affair with the President's missus. Who told them? P: Well, er, we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet.GLP: Hmmm. Wouldn't they be better off spending their time on preparations to kill the President rather than messing around with moles? P: But they don't need to prepare very much, their mole is so well placed, he can organise anything. Like, shooting down the Presidential helicopter with a surface to air missile! GLP: So that's how they kill the President. P: Eh? No. He's not on board.GLP: Their mole screwed up?P: Oh no. He knew all right.GLP: So how come they blow up the helicopter when the target is known NOT to be on board? P: Er. Ah. Well. . . we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet.GLP: Right. I see. . . Now then, how does our hero find out about the plot to kill the President? P: An informant tells him.GLP: The informant is one of the assassins? P: Heck no. He's a street bum. American as they come.GLP: So how does a street bum know that foreign assassins are going to kill the President with the help of a mole in the Secret Service? P: Well. . . we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet -- unless, unless. . . The assassins tell him!GLP: So these foreigners somehow know a Washington street bum and they also know this street bum is a paid informer working for the Secret Service? D'you think that's, um. . . remotely credible? P: Well. . . we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet. But, but: it's not just the informant. They murder another Secret Service agent to make it all the more. . . Credible.GLP: Why? Does he know of the assassination plan? P: No.GLP: Then why is he killed? P: I think, well, put it like this. . . we haven't quite figured out that plot point yet.GLP: Right. OK. Perhaps we'd better move on. Who're you thinking of casting? P: Keifer Sutherland.GLP: Ah! Keifer, running here and there, like in 24, action man, all that stuff. Yes, that'd work.P: Sorry, no. It's gonna be Michael. Michael Douglas who runs everywhere. Keifer's chasing him.GLP: Shouldn't it be the other way round -- I mean, Michael's a bit too old now for this kind of stuff? P: I think, well, put it like this. . . we haven't quite figured out that casting issue yet. But we can always shoot Michael long, convince everyone he's faster and fitter than Keifer who's 20 years younger.GLP: Ri-ii-ght. OK. That's the plot. That's the casting. What about the ending? Big set-piece, yes? P: You bet. It all takes place on the back steps of a service stairway inside some building or other in Canada.GLP: You're kidding me.P: No. It's definitely in Canada.GLP: Indoors. On some steps.P: You got it. GLP: OK. OK. Let me think about this. . . I don't understand the casting, I don't understand the plot -- P: Hey. No problem. We don't either.GLP: -- and I can't think why anyone with a single functioning brain cell would want to sit through it.P: Yeah, but, apart from that. . ?GLP: I'm not sure. P: Hey, did I say, we're casting Kim Basinger AND Eva Longoria?GLP: Wow! So what do they get to do in the movie?P: Absolutely nothing. GLP: OK. I'm sold. You're green-lit for $60 mill.