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The Sentinel Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some intense action violence and a scene of sensuality) Genre: Action, Thriller Theater release: April 21, 2006 by 20th Century Fox Directed by: Clark Johnson Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes Cast: Michael Douglas (Pete Garrison), Kiefer Sutherland (David Breckinridge), Eva Longoria (Jill Marin), Kim Basinger (Sarah Ballentine), Martin Donovan (William Montrose), Ritchie Coster (The Handler), David Rasche (President Ballentine) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

1993's In the Line of Fire starred Clint Eastwood as an aging U.S. Secret Service agent who must thwart the assassination of the President. That same year also saw Harrison Ford in the cinematic adaptation of The Fugitive, where an innocent man tries to prove his innocence while pursued by a methodical lawman. Smoosh the two together and you have this cookie cutter conspiracy thriller. While there's nothing wrong with revisiting familiar material, The Sentinel struggles with execution.

Michael Douglas (absent from the screen since 2003's The In-Laws) is Pete Garrison, a respected Secret Service agent who stepped between John Hinckley Jr.'s gunfire and President Regan twenty-five years ago. Today he heads the team that protects First Lady Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger). After a colleague (director Clark Johnson) is murdered before he can privately share important information with Garrison, the investigative division of the Secret Service steps in, led by top agent David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland of television's 24). Garrison then receives a tip from his favorite snitch: the Secret Service has a mole masterminding a plan to assassinate President Ballentine (David Rasche from television's Sledge Hammer).

Kiefer Sutherland stars as Secret Service Agent David Breckinridge

Complicating matters further are the relationships between these characters. Breckinridge was once Garrison's friend and protégé, but the two recently had a falling out after Breckinridge suspected Garrison was having an affair with his wife. He's mistaken—Garrison is instead sleeping with the First Lady whenever the two can discreetly slip away to the Presidential retreat without suspicion.

It's this shameful secret that causes Garrison to fail the office polygraph test and thus become the chief suspect in the assassination plot he's trying to foil. Rather than talk it over in custody, he goes on the run and relies on his years of experience as a Secret Service agent to uncover the mole himself while also evading Breckenridge and his assistant Jill Marin (Eva Longoria of television's Desperate Housewives), who studied under Garrison at the Academy.

Yes, The Sentinel is as soapy as it sounds, derailing the suspense, mystery, and action needed to drive a film like this. As much as people may want to see Douglas and Sutherland interact and outwit each other, the film confuses acting together with yelling at each other. See, Breckinridge is by-the-books procedural and bases all his decisions on evidence, while Garrison follows his instincts to make snap decisions. Oh, and then they've got that whole affair thing between them too.

Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas) is a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the First Lady (Kim Basinger)

The actors are simply going through the motions here. Garrison is a variation on the same character Douglas has been playing for the last fifteen years—the intense hero struggling to overcome his sins. Though Sutherland is "playing by the rules" this time, he's still in full Jack Bauer mode, following the evidence but still making some hasty leaps in logic; you'd think the actor would want to try something different in his time off from 24. Meanwhile, Longoria's character merely exists as clichéd eye candy—the plucky feminine agent on her first field assignment after graduating second in her class at the Academy.

But the actors aren't really to blame for relying on what's worked before. The Sentinel suffers from a flimsy and predictable story shallower than the average made-for-television production. At the very least, the filmmakers and studio would have been wiser to hide the point that Garrison becomes a suspect in the investigation, especially since it doesn't happen until midway through the movie (to the disappointment of those hoping for lots of cat and mouse between the two leads). It would have been refreshing to shed some doubt on Garrison's innocence and hint at potential plot twists. Instead, there's never a question of Garrison's innocence, the film's only surprise being the identity of the mole, which can easily be guessed early into the film.

The dialogue is shallow too, denying heart from relationships that require depth and poignancy. While on the run with everything falling apart, Garrison tells the First Lady, "Don't worry, we're going to get out of this." She asks how. "I haven't figured that out yet," he responds with dead seriousness. When confronted about the affair involving the country's most visible couple, Garrison's explanation is similarly oversimplified—"Because I love her." Too bad the forbidden love isn't played with any believable sense of chemistry or passion. For that matter, the film goes no further to explain why the First Lady is unhappy in her marriage, and at times, it actually feels as if we're supposed to root for the adultery, because after all, they're the heroes.

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