Review of The Sentinel (2006) by Hans J. E — 09 Apr 2010

Sometimes a film can appear to have all the right elements but it just gets it wrong on almost every level. The Sentinel is one of those films.

It's got a good cast, Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Kim Basinger, all of whom are decent enough. It's an assassination thriller which should be able to practically write itself into excitement but somewhere along the way, none of it fits together.

The plot is extremely poorly put together, so much so that even the one or two scenes which do threaten to drum up some drama fall absolutely flat and as a consequence, the entire cast appear to be phoning it in. Making matters worse, the main bad guy might as well be walking through the film carrying a large sign saying "It's going to be me, try to act surprised".

The Sentinel was clearly hoping to cash in on the success of Sutherland's series 24, you can probably safely assume that was behind 50% of the decision to cast him but it doesn't even mange to deliver one iota of the tension and intrigue that the show manages.

This is a major opportunity lost and should have gone through several re-writes before this version was allowed to go before the cameras.