Not to be confused with Michael Winner’s 1977, batshit take on Rosemary’s Baby – in fact I can’t think of two movies that share a title that are more different – The Sentinel is a mid-2000s political thriller that seeks to meld three seperate movie tropes from the 80s into one, glorious whole. The first one is the classic, save-the-President plot that arguably reached its zenith in Wolfgang Peterson’s Clint Eastwood starrer, In The Line Of Fire that’s sees an aging secret service agent caught up in an assassination plot. Second up, The Sentinel throws in a man-on-the-run plot crystallised almost perfectly by Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive, which famously saw Harrison Ford framed for a crime and Tommy Lee Jones consuming scenery until he catches him; but the final piece of the trifecta seeks to be the weirdest as this Washington set thriller strives to also lock onto that string of movies that saw Michael Douglas repeatedly get into deep shot because he can’t keep his dick in his pants? Can one movie somehow do justice to three memorable movie tropes, or does The Sentinel get dropped by a lone gunman codenamed “Boredom”?
Pete Garrison is the quintessential cinematic secret service agent. Firstly, he’s an aging veteran who has undoubtedly seen it all, especially when he took a couple of slugs for Ronald Reagan back in the day, but 3hile the years are now rapidly against him, he still serves and seems to be genuinely liked and respected by everyone who works with him. However, it seems that while Garrison is a good man, he is only human after all and is currently locked in an affair with Sarah Ballentine – aka. the First Lady of the United States, which as you might agree, is pretty fucking bad for business.
The waters get progressively muddier when one of Garrison’s best friends is murdered on his front porch after it seemed like he had some important information to share and in the aftermath of the killing, the Secret Service Protective Intelligence Division snaps into action with the gruff David Breckinridge at the forefront who soon discovers that this all leads to the unthinkable discovery that there’s a mole in the secret service. Because Garrison fluffed a recent lie detector test due to his secret that he’s personally providing extra cover for the First Lady, he soon becomes the prime suspect and because he and Breckinridge have a salty past thanks to Garrison training him and years later having an affair with his wife (Jesus Garrison, have you no restraint?), his former protégé is determined to take his philandering ass down.
However, while are hero may be something of a lothario, he’s not an assassin and so he embarks on a one-man mission to clear his name while avoiding the law.
Can he manage this herculean task? At his age? I guess if you’re spry enough to cheat on the President of the United States, then proving your innocence is going to be a snap.
I guess if you’re rating The Sentinel on how effectively it ticks those boxes of emulating other thrillers, it ends up emulating it’s muses rather well. If you’re coming at it from an In The Line Of Danger angle, we get all the typical, secret service stuff you could hope for including an awful selection of dark glasses and plenty of casual office politics within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Doubling down on this, Douglas slips into the shiny shoes of the main charcter who puts the “age” in agent as he manages to keep up with the younger breed thanks to decades of experience. From there, we segue into Fugitive territory, although having Douglas on the run doesn’t take up as much of the runtime as you’d think as he isn’t fully implicated until the halfway mark. Still, he gets to throw his persuers off with his wiley expertise while Kiefer Sutherland gets to put on his best Jack Bauer growl while he chews our his subordinates and demands that Eva Longoria’s rookie dresses more conservatively. Finally, while we thankfully don’t reach the sexually excesses of Basic Instinct, the fact that The Sentinel falls comfortably into that sub-genre of movies where Michael Douglas’ penis gets him into trouble (see also: Fatal Attraction & Disclosure), proves to be a little amusing considering just how many compulsive bed hoppers the actor has insisted on portraying.
However, while it’s fun to point out all the filmic markers the film is straining to touch base with (chalk up a hint of Murder At 1600, while we’re at it), it makes the classic mistake of forgetting to actually be even remotely exciting or interesting as any of the other films I’ve already listed. While thrillers set in and around the White House usually carry themselves with a dignified air that comes complete with mournful, patriotic trumpets on the soundtrack, director Clark Johnson neglects to provide anything more than the basics needed to get such a flick to catch the attention of viewers.
Douglas can do this sort of thing with both hands tied behind his back and while he once again indulges in trying to craft a heroic character who carries more than his fair share of flaws, but the trouble is that he’s coasting on past glories. In comparison, Sutherland slams his gruff settings to maximum as his character rumbles at everyone in sight like his throat nodes are the size of boxing gloves, but again he’s only a pale imitation of Lee Jones as he barks his way through the script. Everyone else is fairly negligible – Eva Longoria admittedly brings spunk to her rookie role, but the film doesn’t give her that much to do other than occasionally prove herself to be a bright student. Similarly, Kim Basinger has less to do other than pine for her lover while keeping a stoic face for her husband and you can’t help but feel that if the film maybe took a few more outlandish risks to actually make the stakes land.
However, while the film expects you to believe that Michael Douglas could smoke the entire secret service in a foot chase, it weirdly also feels that not much is at stake despite the fact that the American President is in someone’s crosshairs. It’s weird that a film with the tagline “In 141 years, there’s never been a traitor in the secret service… Until now.” feels so abnormally safe when the entire fabric of the presidency should be getting flipped on its ear, but despite its best intentions, it’s tough to get overly invested in a threat that Jack Ryan probably could have solved before lunch time…
A thriller that jogs when it should be sprinting, The Sentinal seems to think that referencing better movies will somehow equate to actually just being good and as a result, you’re more likely to doze or lose focus than get caught up in the presidential hokum. But if I absolutely had to reference another movie to rate it, then it’s going to have to be In The Lame Of Fire.
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