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Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Martin Donovan, Ritchie Coster ... see more see more... , Kim Basinger , Gloria Reuben , Blair Brown , David Rasche , Kristin Lehman , Raynor Scheine , Chuck Shamata , Paul Calderon , Clarque Johnson , Jeff Kassel

A man who has devoted himself to serving the leader of the free world is accused of plotting against him in this thriller. Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas) is a veteran Secret Service agent who has had... read more read more... a long and distinguished career helping protect the president of the United States. David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) is a fellow Secret Service agent who learned most of what he knows from Garrison and holds him in great respect. When intelligence data suggests that there is a mole within the Secret Service who is part of a plot to assassinate President Ballentine (David Rasche), Garrison launches an investigation to ferret out the rogue agent, and asks Breckinridge to go over the evidence with a fine-toothed comb. Breckinridge is shocked when the clues point to Garrison as the traitor within the Secret Service, but his sense of duty compels him to see that his former mentor is placed under arrest. Garrison eludes his captors and struggles to prove his innocence while tracking down the real conspirator and eluding the agents who were once his colleagues. As Breckinridge leads the search for Garrison, another ranking agent, Jill Marin (Eva Longoria) plays devil's advocate, convinced that Garrison couldn't possibly be the rat in the house. The Sentinel also co-stars Kim Basinger as the First Lady. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Flixster Users

46% liked it

82,023 ratings

Critics

33% liked it

134 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 47 min.

Directed by: Clark Johnson

Release Date: April 21, 2006

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DVD Release Date: August 29, 2006

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Stats: 3,905 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (3,905)

  • TheDudeLebowski65
    May 3, 2012
    TheDudeLebowski65
    The Sentinel is a good action film that has a decent cast. This film is good entertainment, but it could have been much better. The film certainly is good entertainment, but at times it lingers and it just becomes good. The film starts off great, leaves you on the edge of your se... read moreat, but somewhere near the middle part, it just becomes a good film, and its potential is wasted a bit. I think that The Sentinel could have been a great action thriller. However the film is just good, and never becomes anything beyond that. After a while it loses its great qualities and simply becomes a good flick. The script could have been reworked a few times to really make this one stand out. The performances make the film work, but there's something missing to really make this one stand out. Overall The Sentinel is a good film, one that could have been great; but due to script limitations, its true potential is unrealized. Thus The Sentinel becomes another in a series of popcorn action thrillers that could have actually been better than what they turned out to be. If you want a good thriller then this is a must see for a mindless evening of entertainment, just don't expect anything great like I did, or else you'll be disappointed. The Sentinel is good, but like I previously stated could have been a lot better than what it turned out to be. However this is a good flick to watch nonetheless even if it's never anything beyond good.
  • xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
    July 27, 2011
    xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
    In 141 years, there's never been a traitor in the Secret Service.... Until Now.

    Saw it again! The movie is very good and it's very fun and the action scenes are very well done, this movie reminded me of the TV series 24. The acting was surprisingly good. Nice solid cast. Very re... read morecommended.

    Pete Garrison is a Secret Service Agent. Another agent wanted to talk to him but could at the time. Later the man is killed. One of Pete's informants tells him that there's a plot to kill the President and whoever is going to do it controls someone in the Secret Service. He believes it is this information that the other agent wanted to talk to Pete about. So an investigation is ordered and another agent, David Breckenridge, Pete's protégé is placed in charged. All agents are subjected to lie detector tests and Garrison fails but not because he's the one, but because he's been having an affair with the First Lady. Later more evidence is unearthed that incriminates Garrison even further which he says was planted. Breckenridge refuses to believe him because of some personal issues they have. So Garrison escapes and tries to find his informant, who's disappeared.
  • BEACHBUNNI
    April 4, 2011
    BEACHBUNNI
    Twenty years have passed since Secret Service agent Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas) saved a Presidents life, as a conspiracy unfolds within the White House, he realises he might have to do the same again but this time there's evidence that he's behind the plot
  • SirPant
    October 15, 2010
    SirPant
    The Sentinel has more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese. That and the fact that I guessed 'who dunnit' (or who was gonna do it) fairly quickly should have been reason enough not to like it but, as it happens, I didn't find it that bad at all. A fun popcorn thriller that's ... read moreeasy to watch.
  • garyX
    August 12, 2010
    garyX
    When a conspiracy to assassinate the president is uncovered and seems to implicate veteran agent Michael Douglas, he is forced to discover the true culprit while on the run from his former colleagues. Yet another in a long line of generic Hollywood conspiracy thrillers, The Senti... read morenel basically plays out like Jack Bauer and son tracking down "terrorists" whose reasons for murdering the president clearly aren't worth explaining. I'm not the biggest fan of Douglas but he is experienced enough to be able to do this kind of thing whilst standing on his head and Sutherland is doing what he does best; in fact, for the second half when Kiefer is let off the leash to get 24 on his ass, it's actually pretty entertaining. Being a Hollywood thriller, it is also blatantly obvious who the traitor is pretty much as soon as he appears on the screen and Eva Longoria has little to do but run around with a gun looking hot but as a whole it is hardly inspiring, but didn't feel like a colossal waste of time either. Decent popcorn entertainment.
  • LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    June 19, 2009
    LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    "In 141 years, there's never been a traitor in the Secret Service.... Until Now."

    A secret service agent is framed as the mole in an assassination attempt on the president. He must clear his name and foil another assassination attempt while on the run from a relentless ... read moreFBI agent.

    REVIEW

    Aging actor Michael Douglas stars in "The Sentinel" (as in sentry or guard, not newspaper) as a Secret Service Agent in a film that revolves around a plot to assassinate the sitting President. Yes, Clint Eastwood walked in similar shoes in 1993's "In the Line of Fire", and with more satisfying results. Nonetheless "The Sentinel" is not just a derivative of Eastwood's film, but a whole slew of political thrillers shot in the Washington D.C. area. Douglas' film, though, does one better. "The Sentinel" is an overcomplicated thriller that deals not only with an assassination plot but with double-crossing, treason, White House infidelity, a tattered relationship between longtime friends, a rookie's first time out, as well as any number of twists that would likely give something away. "The Sentinel" has so many different plot lines on its plate at any given time it's amazing it didn't lose focus more often than it did. Even though "The Sentinel" was engaging, and occasionally puzzling, given the current political climate, and the precariousness of world events, a much more interesting and complex film about an assassination plot could have been made.
  • ironclad1609
    January 7, 2009
    ironclad1609
    Pretty decent thriller about a plot to kill the American president (played by David "Sledgehammer" Rasche, now if that isn't funny enough). While it adds not much new to the genre, uses ideas from movies like "In the Line of Fire" or "The Fugitive" it is still pretty well done an... read mored combines a cast of good names. Kiefer Sutherland doesn't have more to do than channel Jack Bauer really and Michael Douglas is the innocent man on the run. That's entertaining, sometimes a bit rushed, sometimes not entirely believable and the ending isn't exactly a big shocker either, but never boring. There are worse ways to spend 100 minutes. Fans of the genre or the actors should be satisfied enough.
  • thmtsang
    December 20, 2008
    thmtsang
    Excellent thriller about a secret service agent (Michael Douglas) who is framed for a plot to kill the president. New role for Eva. Kiefer is gorgeous.
  • matertenebraum
    October 14, 2008
    matertenebraum
    It's been 19 years since Gordon Gekko used "Wall Street" to let us know that greed is good. Now, Michael Douglas takes the GG persona and morphs it into a Secret Service agent, Pete Garrison. Guess what? It works! This is a solid political thriller that kept me guessing. The deta... read moreil work in showing the security precautions taken by the SS on behalf of the President and First Lady was likewise intriguing. All the leads were pretty good but, try as I might, I could not accept Eva Longoria as a Secret Service agent. Whereas Jodie Foster just made you suspend belief and really think she was FBI agent Starling in "Silence of the Lambs", you do not get the same feeling with Longoria. Nevertheless, this is a fun film, escapist entertainment with the Beltway as the backdrop.
  • Redlats
    March 28, 2008
    Redlats
    Michael Douglas is a CIA agent who gets set up by one of his fellow agents. I saw it for the second time today and I maintain that if that is the best the CIA can do, the USA is in big trouble. But it was an exciting movie.

View All The Sentinel Reviews

Critic Reviews

Bill Gallo
April 25, 2006
Bill Gallo, Village Voice

[The film] has more holes than Bush's war plan and employs less fluent English. Full Review

Richard Roeper
April 24, 2006
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

Nobody's better than Michael Douglass as playing that guy who makes that big mistake, and then spends the rest of the movie trying to atone for it. Full Review

Stephen Whitty
April 21, 2006
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

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

Mick LaSalle
April 21, 2006
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller. Full Review

Geoff Pevere
April 21, 2006
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

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

Justin Chang
April 21, 2006
Justin Chang, Variety

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 vis... Full Review

James Berardinelli
April 21, 2006
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

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

Steven Rea
April 21, 2006
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

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

Roger Moore
April 21, 2006
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

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

Kyle Smith
April 21, 2006
Kyle Smith, New York Post

The Sentinel is so bland that it wants only to be as good as TV.

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