Dir: Clark Johnson.
Cast: Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Kim Basinger.
Following asummer of endless kiddie-flicks and crowd pleasing pap, one longs for a grown-up film with a little substance and style. And that is what The Sentinel appears to be.
It’s an old-fashioned political thriller that can trace antecedents from such Seventies’ classics as The Conversation and All the Presidents Men through to more contemporary hits, such as last year’s The Interpreter. The fact that this picture doesn’t quite match their quality is a disaster.
Putting it’s shortcomings aside, the film has two strengths: it provides a convincing insight into the huge effort that goes into keeping the President of the United States alive, and it has been cleverly cast. Michael Douglas and Kim Basinger represent the A-list Hollywood mainstream, while the pulling power of television is harnessed by employing Kiefer Sutherland, who last week won an Emmy for his sustained effort on 24, and Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives.
But, first and foremost, this is a Michael Douglas film. He co-produced it, he stars in it and he has made sure that, as White House Secret Service agent Pete Garrison, he’s on screen pretty much the whole time. And no one rushes round in a dark suit and even darker glasses muttering ’Copy that’ into a walkie-talkie better than Douglas.
Sensibly, given the actor’s age, Garrison is a White House veteran. Indeed, in a story detail that blends fiction with historical fact, he is haunted by visions of the bullet he took for President Reagan back in ’81. Might he, one day, have to do the same again?
There is certainly no shortage of people who want to kill the current President. There are extremists from all corners of the world, but the office walls of Garrison’s Secret Service rival, David Breckinridge (Sutherland), are covered with scrawled notes and threatening letters from closer to home.
’Is this just from last week?’ asks rookie Jill Marin (Longoria), who may have graduated second from Secret Service academy but clearly wasn’t paying attention during the ’suitable tops to wear to work’ class.
’Nope’ replies the impressively focused Breckinridge, ’that’s about half of them.’
Then there are the phone calls, the e-mails...Guarding the President’s life is clearly a resource-draining job. And it gets even more so once one of the White House security team is gunned down and an old informant of Garrison’s provides convincing evidence that, for the first time in the Secret Service’s 141-year history, there is a traitor in it’s ranks.
There is just one problem: the traitor is not the only agent hiding a guilty secret. While the President has been preoccupied with peace accords and G8 summits, Garrison has been having an affair with the First Lady. Which is not really the sort of secret you want on your conscience once your boss has dug out the lie detector machine.
From here The Sentinel reminds me of two old Harrison Ford films, Presumed Innocent and The Fugitive, and it’s shortcomings emerge.
Although Basinger underplays her role as the Presidental other half rather well, we’re never emotionally involved in her illicit, not to mention logistically challenging, affair with Garrison. Nor is the nature of the threat to her husband clear or, once it has been spelt out, convincing.
Having done such a good job with the first half, director Clark Johnson levels struggles to maintain conviction levels and pace in the second. Even the prescence of the impressive Sutherland begins to look like a mistake, with the similarities to 24 reminding us that today we like our political conspiracies spun out over months, not dried and dusted in an hour and three quarters.
For a film that began looking so big, The Sentinel ends up feeling a little small. Ocean’s Twelve screenwriter George Nolfi commits the real crime in forgetting to make us care about the characters in this film. The unmasking of the real traitor proved to be the least astounding of the supposedly shocking twists.
It’s directed at a breakneck pace, with running, jumping and sliding against walls and a lot of putting on and taking off sunglasses. But despite all the action, the story is as compelling as watching the ink dry on a superfluous UN treaty. And the relentless car chases and gun fights only amplify the tedium as every possible threat is neutralised.