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are a lot of things missing from Clark Johnson's
intriguing but terribly flawed "The
Sentinel", but the most problematic one is
the question of why the assassins were trying to
off the President of the
United States
(played by no other than the Sledge Hammer
himself) in the first place. Then again, not that
it really matters, as the point of "The
Sentinel" seems to be getting to the
slam-bang action climax rather than supplying any
sort of reasoning behind the events that led up to
it. But perhaps I missed the reason behind the
attempted assassination, and although a second
viewing could possibly clear up some confusion,
the film is just not that
good to convince me to take in a second viewing.
"The Sentinel"
stars aging movie star Michael Douglas as aging
Secret Service agent Pete Garrison, one of the
teeming mass of black-suited men (and women) that
shadows the President's every move. After a plot
to kill POTUS comes to light, Garrison is put in
precarious circumstances, helped in no small part
by an ongoing affair with the First Lady (Kim
Basinger). As he seeks to uncover more details of
the impending assassination, Garrison's
indiscretions come home to roost, and he's quickly
framed as one of the conspirators. Forced to go on
the run in order to clear his name, Garrison's
problems worsen when David Breckinridge (Kiefer
Sutherland), the Secret Service agent he
personally trained (not to mention a former friend
with whom he has had a falling out) is assigned to
track his mentor.
Suffering woefully from a
convoluted plot that gets less and less
intelligent as the running time ticks away,
"The Sentinel" is best viewed in spurts.
The film's best segments are its middle, as
Garrison eludes his Secret Service comrades after
being framed. The shoot'em-up finale is easily the
film's most action-packed sequence, literally
closing out the movie in fine, slam-bang style.
Alas, the script by George Nolfi (based on the
novel by Gerald Petievich, a former Secret Service
man who also wrote the novel "To Live and die
in L.A.", which was turned into the '80s
movie of the same name) is, to be kind, kicks the
ass out of common sense and simply refuses to take
names.
The film's story is
everywhere, with enough plot holes,
inconsistencies, and underdeveloped subplots
running all over the place, introduced and dropped
later without any consideration for the non-ADD
afflicted viewer in the audience. It's these
illogical plot threads and unresolved issues that
create such a tremendous problem with endorsing
"The Sentinel". There is much to enjoy
about the film, including the first 30 or so
minutes, which are filled with an insider's look
(rather real or false, although they feel
remarkably real) at the guarding of the most
powerful man on Earth. The details seem entirely
authentic, right down to the code names given to
the President and his First Lady. (Speaking of
which, one of those unresolved subplots is the
estranged nature of the President and his wife.)
And who knew there was a secret, all-powerful word
that, when spoken, grants you almost Godlike
powers among the Secret Service agents?
Advertising campaigns for the
film have been indulging in a little sleight of
hand, with Kiefer Sutherland touted as being the
film's star, when it is actually Michael Douglas
who gets the top marquee spot. But of course the
approach by the marketing people is obvious and
understandable, considering that "The
Sentinel" was originally released in theaters
at about the time of "24's" Season 5 run
on TV. ("24" being the immensely popular
action-adventure show starring Kiefer Sutherland,
as a badass secret agent who kills first and
barely takes any names later, if you didn't
already know.)
It's been said that "The
Sentinel" sometimes feels like an extended
episode of "24", except with
Douglas
standing in for Sutherland, and in truth there is
some merit to this. Consider the middle sequence
with Garrison in the wind, as the aging Secret
Service agent uses up all the tricks at his
disposal to get around his former colleagues.
Watching Garrison turn a Blackberry cellphone into
the world's most useful spy tool will undoubtedly
bring grins to "24" fans, as Jack Bauer
has been known to employ his all-purpose PDA to
similar effect. I swear Bauer can jerry rig a bomb
with that PDA as easily as McGyver can do likewise
to the same bomb with a gum wrapper and
rubberband.
As expected, Clark Johnson's
experiences working on a large ensemble cast like
TV's shamefully ignored, but brilliantly executed
"Homicide" comes into play. The film's
main storyline -- Garrison being framed and hunted
by his own people -- doesn't even surface until
almost the hour mark, leaving more than enough
room for character development. Garrison is of
course the film's most fleshed out character,
leaving Sutherland's Breckinridge with a lot of
room for improvement. Eva Longoria handles a gun
well enough, but like Breckinridge, her character
barely gets any personality beyond the "super
hot rookie" that all the male agents try to
hit on. Can you blame them?
"The Sentinel" is
worth taking a peek if you were ever curious about
how the Secret Service works, or what guarding the
President entails. People have criticized the film
for being boring, mainly on the basis that there
isn't very much action in the first hour. True,
the action doesn't really come to the fore until
the end, but even so, the film is so fantastically
paced by Johnson (at the cost of plot logic, one
can almost say), that it's hard not to enjoy the
film as it's playing. If you like a well paced
thriller that boils to a crescendo, "The
Sentinel" would certainly suffice as a
late-night rental, or even a bargain bin DVD buy.
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