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The Sentinel
2 of 4 Stars
Rated: PG for Mild Language, Violence and Thematic Elements
Starring: Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Martin Donovan,
Paul Calderon
Directed by: Clark Johnson
Produced by: Michael Douglas, Marcy Drogin, Arnon Milchan
I am a huge fan of the mega hit “24”, therefore my expectations and hopes for
“The Sentinel” were set very high. Each season of “24” plays like a 17 hour
non stop action thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. “The
Sentinel” plays like a 2 hour second rate thriller that keeps you suspended in
boredom for the first 1 hour and 15 minutes. After that, the rest of the movie
is great. For those of you who are hoping that Kiefer Sutherland would
continue his “Jack Bauer” persona on the big screen will be left wanting. Its
weird watching Kiefer finally catch a suspected bad guy, and then just let him
go. In “24” he would have blown him away for flinching, good or bad. Kiefer
Sutherland in The Sentinel suffers through his character with just very bad
writing and an over casted plot. He is fine in his role, but again, what he is
given to say is pretty much DVD material. Michael Douglas oddly just seems
like he is just acting, unlike his other roles where he is top notch, he just
seems like he is kind of bored in this movie. We are used to some of his best
like “Romancing the Stone, The Game and Traffic. We also have the up and
coming Eva Langoria who is only thrown in the plot for the sole purpose of
giving us a glimpse of her soon to be big screen stardom, and she does fine,
but certainly not ready to carry a picture by herself.
The Sentinel is the oft retold story of mole in the White House and someone
is trying to kill the President. Michael Douglas is one of the Secret Service
agents in charge of helping protect the President, while also having an affair
with the Presidents wife. Kiefer Sutherland is the old best friend of Michael
Douglas, now personal enemy, because of suspecting him of having an affair
with his wife. I guess that Michael Douglas is the ultimate Grandpa Player,
because he cannot stop picking up younger chicks. Once the plot is
discovered, Michael Douglas is suspected as being the mole and Kiefer is in
charge of hunting him down, all while Michael Douglas claims his innocence.
The best part of the movie is the last 45 minutes, where you are really trying
to figure out who the mole is. Michael, Kiefer, and the list goes on.
During the opening scene of this movie, I was stunned by the beauty of the
film making, however out of nowhere, they kept trying to use the “Traffic”
feeling, which is gritty and almost looks videotaped. And it works for Traffic
but in my opinion tanks The Sentinel. They had a great feeling but kept
trying to get over hip and over cool. They should have just stuck to the film
making in the beginning of the film. I also was not a fan of they way the
camera kept zooming in and around the characters. Again, attempting to be
cool, hurt the integrity of the movie. What happened to just making a dang
movie that does not have to be over-stylized and hip.
Thankfully there is NO political agenda in this movie at all, and it does stick to
its main point of the assassination throughout. However the shoes that The
Sentinel has to fill are none other than “In the Line of Fire” which is the best
movie by far, about an attempted assassination on the President. Other
great assassination movies are “Day of the Jackal” with Edward Fox and yes,
even “The Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner, but The Sentinel is nowhere near
either.
If you are a fan of Jack Bauer, you will be disappointed to see that Keifer is
certainly not as cool as Jack. If you are a fan of Michael Douglas, you will be
saddened by how boring he is. With that being said, maybe you should walk
in after an hour and fifteen minutes and you will in fact get a top notch thriller.
Parental Warning: Mild Language, Some NON Bloody Violence, and MILD
subject matter about an affair. This movie is just fine for 10 and above in my
opinion, however the subject matter may want you to wait until they are 13.
For those of you who are concerned about the affair as being filthy. Do not
worry, there is NO sex in this movie at all. They are very tasteful in their
description of what is going on. They are not trying to push the limits on this
one, but rather toss it in for the importance of the movie. And yes it does
have a significant role and not overplayed. It is not offensive, nor it is
something that is done for sick effect as so many other movies.
The movie is pretty clean with the exception of a few bad words here and
there and personally I think this movie could have easily been PG, if it was not
for the subject matter.
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