In between is a slickly executed generic thriller that, like its humorless investigator Breckinridge, does it all by the book.
The Sentinel (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:133
Fresh:44
Rotten:89
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: The Sentinel starts off well enough but quickly wears thin with too many plot holes and conventional action sequences.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for some intense action violence and a scene of sensuality
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Apr 21, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $36,226,144
Synopsis: Pete Garrison is a U.S. Secret Service agent who saved a president's life by jumping in front of a hail of bullets, over twenty years ago. Well-liked and respected by his colleagues in the... Pete Garrison is a U.S. Secret Service agent who saved a president's life by jumping in front of a hail of bullets, over twenty years ago. Well-liked and respected by his colleagues in the Secret Service, Garrison is a career agent who now heads the First Lady's detail. He lives in a high-level, orderly world of hierarchical structure, plans, maps, motorcades, code names, lingo and procedures. It's a universe that makes sense, until secrets begin to tear it apart. Pete's fellow agent and friend, Charlie Merriweather, hints at wanting to share critical and confidential information. Before that can happen, however, Merriweather is shot dead at his house in a crime that is made to look like a botched robbery. The investigation falls to the Secret Service's top investigative agent, David Breckinridge, a volatile combination of by-the-book and hothead, Garrison's protégé, and, until recently one of Garrison's best friends. Breckinridge follows the evidence and only the evidence and scrupulously tries to avoid working from his gut. That's what being a great investigator requires. Garrison, as perhaps the greatest protective agent in the service, often has to work from gut, from pure instinct. In protective work that is often all you have. Garrison's and Breckinridge's recent falling out was triggered by Breckinridge's mistaken belief that Garrison was having an affair with Breckinridge's now ex-wife. Jill Marin, a tough, sassy and ambitious young agent who just graduated second in her class at the Secret Service Academy, arrives for her first field posting. She has requested a work detail with Breckinridge because Garrison, while leading a field instruction exercise at the Academy told Jill that Breckinridge was the best investigator in the entire Service. Together the trio begins to uncover what appears to be an inside job to assassinate the president – a traitor in the ranks of the Secret Service. It's never happened in the institution's 141-year history. Suspicion ultimately falls on Garrison, who's going to find it extremely difficult to clear his name because someone is framing him. Whoever is framing Garrison knows he's vulnerable because he's devoting considerable effort to hiding a monumental secret. Suspected of being treasonous, Garrison goes on the run, pursued by Breckinridge and Marin – his own colleagues – as he tries to nail the real mole and save the president's life. --© 20th Century Fox [More]
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger, Michael Douglas, Martin Donovan
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger, Michael Douglas, Martin Donovan, Blair Brown, Ritchie Coster, David Rasche, Eva Longoria
Director: Clark Johnson
Director: Clark Johnson
Screenwriter: George Nolfi
Producer: Michael Douglas, Arnon Milchan, Bill Carraro
Composer: Christophe Beck
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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Reviews for The Sentinel
It's a sleek piece of entertainment with attractive performers who deliver exactly what's expected of them.
Even after you get past its familiarity, the plot is so improbably complicated that you lose confidence in it.
All this fuss and bother over a very limited leading man who has stayed too long at the fair, brandishing his brawn.
The Sentinel winds up being a cool way to spend a couple of hours. For the average moviegoer of late, that's almost joyous news.
It's a pity that a film with so much promise descends into such lazy predictability.
After a solid first third, The Sentinel wobbles and lurches and starts unsurprising you with its unsurprises.
The Sentinel is one of those well-oiled-machine movies from Hollywood that's slick in an inoffensive way, efficient in a give-the-viewers-what-they-want way. It has no personality per se, but that's what a picture like this is all about.
Goes wrong on so many levels that it's hard to believe name talent and a major studio signed on in the first place.
One of those movies that starts out seeming very silly and grows more and more preposterous as it lurches along....Be on guard against it.
Douglas is the same age that Eastwood's agent was In the Line of Fire from which the tired Sentinel freely borrows. With TV appropriating the White House (West Wing, Commander in Chief) it's time for moratorium on films about presidents and secret agents
...has the demeanor of a conspiracy theorist...as calm and collected as a puppy trotting down the aisles of PetSmart.
The plot reassembles elements from In the Line of Fire, The Fugitive, and a dozen other films, but the result feels impressively fresh.
The Sentinel could easily pass for a generic straight-to-DVD release if it wasn't for the presence of Michael Douglas.
Michael Douglas might have been hired for the star power he could bring for a good opening weekend [but] it's . . . Kiefer Sutherland who walks off with the film
Eva Longoria is the first-day-on-the-job rookie Sutherland improbably takes on as his partner. Her presence is the only irrefutable confirmation that this musty movie was indeed shot in the 21st century.
If I wrote that this is like a bad episode of 24, that would be a compliment!
Gives a good name to the brand of cookie-cutter thriller that satisfies like no other.
Latest News for The Sentinel
April 19, 2007:
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Another week, another horror film. That's the mantra in Hollywood at the moment. Among the four new films going into wide release this weekend are Sony's terror tale... More...
May 07, 2006:
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April 24, 2006:
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April 20, 2006:
Critical Consensus: A Weak "Sentinel," So-So "Dreamz" Are Made Of This, "Silent Hill" Not Screened
This week at the movies we've got a Secret Service agent on a mission ("The Sentinel"), an "American Idol"- skewering political satire ("American... More...
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