ザ・センチネル 陰謀の星条旗

“Garrison” (Michael Douglas) has been working on the US Presidential Secret Service detail closely, indeed a lot more closely than even his boss realises. Then, one of their number is slaughtered on his own doorstep and with the G8 summit in Canada looming, they get wind of a plot to assassinate the President. Somehow his colleague “Breckinridge” (Kiefer Sutherland) gets it into his head that it’s his long-time friend who is behind what have to be serious security leaks and so now with his erstwhile protégé disgusted at what “Garrison” might have done and instituting an investigating that could prove dangerous, he has to clobber a couple of the agents guarding him and embark on his own search for the mole in the organisation. Sutherland is competent enough in this film, but just about every one else and the dialogue are really quite pedestrian as this thriller plods along predictably for all but two hours and  really does make you wonder how anyone protected by these guys could stay alive long enough to get past reading the paper in the morning. Eva Longoria tries to keep things moving as a fellow agent who believes in him and Kim Basinger appears only sparingly, perhaps she appreciated the shocking limitations of her role - but otherwise this is just a lacklustre vehicle for a tired looking star who really didn’t really show up and for a story we have watched play out so often before. It’s standard television fodder, but I very much doubt you’ll ever recall it afterwards.