Film Reviews

The Sentinel is your classic frame-up story where the hero is part of some group or elite taskforce and is mistakenly considered a bad guy. The hero must now elude capture by his/her old colleagues in order to clear his/her name. Think The Negotiator or Minority Report or any other film that fits the bill. In this case, we have Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas), an aged Secret Service Agent who took a bullet for President Reagan in his younger years. When we meet him in his current older state, he's still protecting the current President, but the First Lady seems to have added sexual favors to his job description. We find this out, of course, on the heels of hearing Garrison's close friend tell him that he has something important to disclose, but will wait until later. Note to Self: Whenever someone tells you that they "have something important to tell you," make them tell you whatever it is right then and there. Nine times out of ten, that person will end up dead before they can tell it to you. Such is the case here. Alas. Fortunately for Garrison, an informant tips him off to an internal assassination plot on the President by a rogue Secret Service Agent. Things turn for the worse, however, when someone blackmails Garrison into suspicious behavior, using photographs of him and the First Lady as leverage. This causes super-agent David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) and his new partner (Eva Longoria) to bring Garrison in, who, of course, runs. From there, Garrison must elude authorities, prove his innocence, smoke out the rogue agent and save the President's life all in what's left of the 108 minutes of the movie.