I love it when movies come out early in the US and are out on DVD before they are shown theatrically in the UK, as it means I don’t have to ask Jen’s mum to look after Ben so that we can go to the cinema - we can just get the DVD and watch in the comfort of our home and look smug because we’ve seen it before all of our friends.
The Sentinel, starring Michael Douglas, Keifer Sutherland and Eva Longoria, is such a movie. We fancied this one as it looked a lot like 24: The Movie, and it had the added eye candy of Eva Longoria along for the ride. Pete Garrison (Douglas) is a veteran Secret Service agent who took one in the gut protecting Ronald Reagan many moons ago. Still employed in protecting presidents, his world is rocked when he appears to be being blackmailed by someone aware that he is, in fact, seeing to the First Lady (Kim Basinger). And if that wasn’t enough, he uncovers a plot to assassinate the President, not only putting him in the frame as a suspect, but the case is investigated by his ex-best friend Breckinridge (Sutherland), who believes Garrison to be the cause of the breakup of his marriage.
Yes, there’s a lot going on here. And the movie does indeed play like an episode of 24. However that may be both it’s strength and weakness. It’s a tense thriller that had us on the edge of the seat, moving swiftly between characters and giving us tantalising flashes of the terrorists plotting for the assassination. Then, about halfway through, the movie changes direction, becoming somewhat of a Fugitive clone. At this point, Sutherland and Longoria get a little lost behind Douglas’ ingenius methods of avoiding capture, resulting in him single handedly solving the crime, leaving me feeling as though there were some serious cuts to the running time and a general lack of stamina for maintaining the tension built up in the first half of the movie. After building up expectations so high, it effectively set itself up for a fall, resolving the movie in a pretty run-of-the mill, seen it all before in this type of movie, kind of way.
That said, my complaint only relegates The Sentinel to good movie from great movie. It is a lot of fun, well acted and directed for the most part, but I can’t help but think what if…
