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Movies / Upcoming / The Sentinel
The Sentinel

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The Sentinel (2006)

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Reviews Counted:133

Fresh:44

Rotten:89

Average Rating:5/10

Consensus: The Sentinel starts off well enough but quickly wears thin with too many plot holes and conventional action sequences.

Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

US Box Office: $36,226,144

Synopsis: Pete Garrison is a U.S. Secret Service agent who saved a president's life by jumping in front of a hail of bullets, over twenty years ago. Well-liked and respected by his colleagues in the... Pete Garrison is a U.S. Secret Service agent who saved a president's life by jumping in front of a hail of bullets, over twenty years ago. Well-liked and respected by his colleagues in the Secret Service, Garrison is a career agent who now heads the First Lady's detail. He lives in a high-level, orderly world of hierarchical structure, plans, maps, motorcades, code names, lingo and procedures. It's a universe that makes sense, until secrets begin to tear it apart. Pete's fellow agent and friend, Charlie Merriweather, hints at wanting to share critical and confidential information. Before that can happen, however, Merriweather is shot dead at his house in a crime that is made to look like a botched robbery. The investigation falls to the Secret Service's top investigative agent, David Breckinridge, a volatile combination of by-the-book and hothead, Garrison's protégé, and, until recently one of Garrison's best friends. Breckinridge follows the evidence and only the evidence and scrupulously tries to avoid working from his gut. That's what being a great investigator requires. Garrison, as perhaps the greatest protective agent in the service, often has to work from gut, from pure instinct. In protective work that is often all you have. Garrison's and Breckinridge's recent falling out was triggered by Breckinridge's mistaken belief that Garrison was having an affair with Breckinridge's now ex-wife. Jill Marin, a tough, sassy and ambitious young agent who just graduated second in her class at the Secret Service Academy, arrives for her first field posting. She has requested a work detail with Breckinridge because Garrison, while leading a field instruction exercise at the Academy told Jill that Breckinridge was the best investigator in the entire Service. Together the trio begins to uncover what appears to be an inside job to assassinate the president – a traitor in the ranks of the Secret Service. It's never happened in the institution's 141-year history. Suspicion ultimately falls on Garrison, who's going to find it extremely difficult to clear his name because someone is framing him. Whoever is framing Garrison knows he's vulnerable because he's devoting considerable effort to hiding a monumental secret. Suspected of being treasonous, Garrison goes on the run, pursued by Breckinridge and Marin – his own colleagues – as he tries to nail the real mole and save the president's life. --© 20th Century Fox [More]

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger, Michael Douglas, Martin Donovan

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger, Michael Douglas, Martin Donovan, Blair Brown, Ritchie Coster, David Rasche, Eva Longoria

Director: Clark Johnson

Director: Clark Johnson
Screenwriter: George Nolfi
Producer: Michael Douglas, Arnon Milchan, Bill Carraro
Composer: Christophe Beck
Studio: 20th Century Fox

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Reviews for The Sentinel

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61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

I could identify the mole in 'The Sentinel' the first time he appeared on camera. Don't you hate it when that happens in a movie?

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
04/22/06
Betty Jo Tucker
Betty Jo Tucker
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Working with DP Gabriel Beristain, Johnson shoots the go-nowhere action with an underlit, smudgy color scheme that feels like a poor photocopy of Alejandro González Iñárritu and Fernando Meirelles's signature cinematographic styles.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
04/22/06
Nick Schager
Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Without any mystery or twists, all you're left with is a jumble that Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien could unravel before the first commercial break on a single episode of "24."

Full Review Source: Zap2it.com | comment Comment
04/21/06
Dan Fienberg
Dan Fienberg
Zap2it.com

Kiefer Sutherland, he's awfully cute and all, but why would anyone pay 10 bucks to see him do what you can see him do for free every week on TV?

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
04/21/06
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

If you're going to make a movie with the same title as a second-rate horror film, it should at least be as entertaining as that second-rate horror film.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment Comment
04/21/06
Stephen Whitty
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

The Sentinel is not half bad, but it's not nearly as good as it could have been.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
04/21/06
Louis B. Hobson
Louis B. Hobson
Jam! Movies

It's a competent but charmless, emotionally flat and dull concoction.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
04/21/06
Shlomo Schwartzberg
Shlomo Schwartzberg
Boxoffice Magazine

Director Clark Johnson ties the elements together efficiently and keeps his film on the move, the settings and Secret Service protocols seem authentic, and the performances by Douglas, Sutherland and Longoria are fine.

Full Review Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | comment Comment
04/21/06
Jack Garner
Jack Garner
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
04/21/06
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle

A fairly by-the-numbers route through shootings, framings, diabolical plots and lots of dark-suited Secret Service types talking frantically into their shirt cuffs. (Watch closely, and you'll figure out pretty early who the bad seed is.)

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
04/21/06
Moira MacDonald
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times

If the movie had seized on the purely tacky melodramatic potential of the plot so far -- The Sentinel might have floated above its own silliness on bubbles of pure soap.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
04/21/06
Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star

Everything about it says efficient, modest, small-screen production except the presence of producer-star Michael Douglas, who may finally have hit the wall of his theatrical leading-man viability.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
04/21/06
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

A half-hearted exercise in political paranoia,The Sentinel unravels its wrong-man scenario with business-like efficiency and an impressively jittery visual scheme, but falls far short of providing visceral or emotional thrills.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
04/21/06
Justin Chang
Justin Chang
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

So, although some enjoyment can be had from watching The Sentinel with an uncritical eye, it remains a deeply flawed piece of mainstream action entertainment.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
04/21/06
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

A middling picture at best, it reveals some interesting inner workings of the Secret Service. At worst, it plays like a boring night of TV watched at your mom's.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
04/21/06
Kim Morgan
Kim Morgan
Reel.com

Rife with meaningless hugger-mugger, the movie is no In the Line of Fire.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
04/21/06
Steven Rea
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer

Director Clark Johnson gives The Sentinel a slick, professional veneer -- visually it resembles Tony Scott's Enemy of the State -- but there's no disguising the story problems.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Daily News | comment Comment
04/21/06
Gary Thompson
Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

This is solid genre filmmaking that makes up for a lack of surprises with superior performances, excellent depictions of tradecraft (shades of CSI) and whiplash editing and pacing.

Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | comment Comment
04/21/06
Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel

Who ever suspected we would reach a day when a movie looked like a skin-and-bones version of a TV show?

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
04/21/06
Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Oregonian

Kiefer Sutherland... plays the Secret Service agent investigating Douglas with the same clenched teeth as Jack Bauer minus the torture scenes.

Full Review Source: Salt Lake Tribune | comment Comment
04/21/06
Sean Means
Sean Means
Salt Lake Tribune
 
 
61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
all

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Tom Cruise climbed into his usual number one spot at the box office with his heavily-hyped spy sequel Mission: Impossible III, however ticket sales fell below most industry... More...

April 24, 2006: "Silent" is Golden on a Slow Box Office Weekend
Sony rode a press blackout to first place with their video game horror flick "Silent Hill." The gothic creepfest earned an estimated $20.2 million from 2,900 theaters,... More...

April 20, 2006: Critical Consensus: A Weak "Sentinel," So-So "Dreamz" Are Made Of This, "Silent Hill" Not Screened
This week at the movies we've got a Secret Service agent on a mission ("The Sentinel"), an "American Idol"- skewering political satire ("American... More...

See All

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