MAIN REVIEW:
Once again I was schnookered into seeing a film because of a fine cast and quality production standards. Oh, when will I learn? Maybe I can save you all the price of admission, for there are few elements of this film to recommend it as being worthy of your theater dollars.

"The Sentinel" is not a bad film as far as mindless eye candy goes. Michael Douglas as Secret Service Agent Pete Garrison and Kiefer Sutherland as fellow Secret Service Agent David Breckinridge star in a film where the women, by and large, serve only as set pieces.

Oh, did I mention that Agent Douglas took that bullet that was meant for President Reagan 25 years ago and is still serving on the force as the über agent for all of the others? Or that Agent Breckinridge is one of his many protégés? Or that Agent Garrison just happened to have had an affair with Cindy Breckinridge (Kristin Lehman), the now former wife of Agent Breckinridge, which caused the collapse of his marriage?

And now Breckinridge quite understandably eyes his mentor with ill-disguised enmity and suspicion. Or that Agent Garrison, conveniently single and still randy as a plot device, can't keep his pants up with those close to him and is carrying on a torrid love affair with First Lady Sarah Ballentine (Kim Basinger)? Can you possibly believe that anyone can carry on an affair with the First Lady and not have anyone else know about it or be able to retain his job?

Gee, are all of the pieces in this simplistic plot puzzle set in place so that uncovering a conspiracy to assassinate President Ballentine (David Rasche) that seems to have originated within the Secret Service throws everyone's suspicion towards Agent Garrison?

Well, the guy is obviously hiding something, but how were they to know that he was hiding his clandestine love affair and not covering up something REALLY serious, like wanting to kill the President? Agent Garrison doesn't want to kill the President, he only wants to betray the man that he has pledged his life to protect by boffing his wife...

To give this film its due, which certainly isn't very much, I will grant that it does have sparkling production values and that the first third or so of the movie is absolutely fascinating as a portrait of the business of being a Secret Service agent. These early scenes are shot in a rushed manner with clipped shots and such a feeling of tension and urgency that it is hard not to be drawn into this fast-moving portrait and to accept it as closely resembling what we would like to believe is the truth about that lifestyle. Well, I was hooked for the moment, but only until the real story started to unfold.

How about another hoary old plot point where an informant will only talk to the agent who is soon to come under suspicion as Garrison is here? What a surprise for us to hear this man tell Agent Garrison that there is a plot to kill the President, but the guy is secretive and evasive and Garrison doesn't even know who he is or where he lives. This is the Secret Service, for heaven's sake! With recorded unique voice patterns, spy data, eavesdropping, wiretapping, and hidden bugs, does anyone really believe that the Secret Service can't find out anything about anybody they want?

Clint Eastwood did this far better in his 1993 movie, "In the Line of Fire," in which he played an over the hill Secret Service agent named Frank Harrigan. His clandestine relationship with a fellow agent played by René Russo had real chemistry. And no actor can play a better, more devious villain than John Malkovich, who toyed with Agent Harrigan throughout that film. This movie is only the first movie that comes to mind, not to mention all of the television shows about fictional Chief Executives with the same hoary plot devices.

So, 13 years later "The Sentinel" comes out, and I have to ask, what's the point?

A movie review by Carl Zapffe (05/06/06)