Who’s Guarding The Guards?

Formula and over-familiarity plague The Sentinel

The Rumpled Critic
By David Giarrizzo

If you’re looking for a slick cliff hanging, swivel headed, short-cut edited roller coaster ride of a conspiracy theory movie, this would be this one to see. Like his debut feature, 2003's S.W.A.T. starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell, The Sentinel bears the hallmarks of Johnson's experience as a director: The director even takes a cameo, as a Secret Service agent whose murder gets the plot rolling.

Unrelated to the novel by Arthur C. Clarke, the 1976 film, the 80s TV series of the same name or even to our humble newspaper, The Sentinel is based on the book by Gerald Petievich (who also wrote To Live and Die in L.A.). It apparently uses much the same story, although in the book Kiefer Sutherland’s name was “Martha.”

In keeping with the meticulous detail described by Petievich, we see very wheels of the Secret Service turn, often mechanically so. Toadyism, rumor, and sexual impropriety are supposedly significant problems within the organization. We get but a glimpse of them, as all The Sentinel really cares about is whether or not the good guys win, which it does with surprisingly little suspense. The book may have provided a more solid base for a screenplay than S.W.A.T., but similarities to The Day Of The Jackal and The Manchurian Candidate (either version) just remind us that The Sentinel can’t even peek out from the shadow of better action films.

The opening shot is a presidential cavalcade with black and white footage of President Reagan the day of his attempted assassination by John Hinkley. From there it brings us into the present where bad boy Michael Douglas (The War Of The Roses, Wonder Boys), who previously played head honcho in The American President now is reduced to playing the number one security guard for the President, Agent Garrison. The first part of The Sentinel establishes the trappings of the imperial presidency in the age of terror. We learn the president's code name “Classic,” and that he is given an electronic tracking device every morning when he arises from his lonely bed. When presidential motorcades are assembled, they bristle with guns and people talking earnestly into their cuff links.

Of course, there is a subplot which involves his dirty sex crazed character he so fondly plays, this time with the First Lady Sarah Ballentine played by the ever hot Kim Bassinger (The Door In The Floor, Batman). Douglas (like in Fatal Attraction) and Bassinger (Nine And A Half Weeks) make lots of sex faces while tearing each others clothes off in the Presidential cabin, wherever that may be, and these two enjoy cinematographic sex scenes way too much. I wouldn’t be surprised if they really had a fling. He is approached by a coworker that wants to discuss something with him in privacy, naturally, he assumes it has to do with his ongoing romps with the first lady and gets a bit jiggy.

It turns out there’s a leak in the Secret Service concerning death threats to the President and career agent Pete Garrison is framed for treason. The president is played by David Rasche (Teddy Bears’ Picnic, Barbarians At The Gate), and, ironically, the sitcom actor best known for playing Sledge Hammer nearly twenty years ago seems so much more the man for the job than the one currently residing in the White House.

Garrison’s former best friend David Breckinridge is played in typical fashion by Kiefer Sutherland (Phone Booth, Dark City), who is leading the investigation against Garrison and is willing to take him in under any circumstances. The two had a falling out when Breckinridge accused him of having an affair with his wife. So not only is the evidence overwhelmingly directed towards Garrison, but it would seem to be a personal vendetta as well. Sutherland plays the same uptight character he has played in Flashback and just about every other work he has done, including the successful yet lackluster TV series 24. No surprise as he has had to follow his illustrious father Donald Sutherland’s incredible career.

Fresh out of the academy, agent Jill Marin – played by Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives, Harsh Times) becomes his partner after being a student of Garrison. Aside from the continual jokes concerning her cleavage, she is given very little to work with. Both female roles, Bassinger included, seem to be played down. It is almost like the testosterone was too high on the set, and a balance was in accordance.

Unfortunately, sympathetic close up shots don’t constitute good acting in my books. Neither is how loud and angry one can read lines. Agent Marin remains the one sympathetic character toward the fugitive agent, doing field work for him while Breckinridge’s back is turned. There are many quick edits with rotating camera shots giving a sense of the agents’ perspective, lavish helicopter shots and a strobe light effect for added drama. Of course, I caught a couple of continuity errors: A garbage can has California serial numbers, and a small store which I recognized from Avenue of the Giants on Highway 101 in Northern California.

When Garrison is forced to go on the run from his own people, risking his life to prove he's not behind the conspiracy to assassinate his girlfriend's husband, Breckinridge delivers this movie's equivalent of the Tommy Lee Jones’ “hard-target search” speech in The Fugitive, yet another movie of which The Sentinel will occasionally remind you. “He's smarter than you are, and he knows how you think,” Breckinridge tells the other agents. “You are chasing your worst nightmare” If it feels familiar, there’s a good reason. I kept having this déjà vu about every scene, catching myself remarking, “I remember this scene from another film.” This familiarity is a formula perfected in Hollywood to bait their audience into going out to view their film. But familiarity is why people watch the same characters do essentially the same things week after week on television. It's why some people go to church, some to bars, some to sports events and others to concerts. And this is also why people go to sequels. The movie industry sees Americans as sheep and not intelligent consumers, to which films like Good Night and Good Luck are rare exceptions. Just think of this as “In the Line of Fire XXIV.”

Grade: C-