The Sentinel
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: April 21, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
20
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireKim Newman
Punchy and confronting, with another terrific turn from Seimetz. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Michael Douglas plays US Secret Service agent Pete Garrison, and his jaw has never seemed tighter. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is encouraging that well-crafted thrillers are still being made about characters who have dialogue, identities, motives and clean shirts. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Implausible yet enjoyably diverting thriller. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
An unassuming thriller, a nifty piece of genre filmmaking without frills or self-importance. It's a throwback, if you will, to the days of B pictures, when formula movies were made with a maximum of skill and a minimum of pretense. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Director Clark Johnson has an energetic style of filmmaking and a facile way with stunts and chase sequences. The result is a fairly stylish action thriller. We've seen plenty of suspense films in which a seemingly good guy is framed, so it helps when a director can pull off a few cinematic tricks to keep audiences on their toes. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Director Clark Johnson and screenwriter George Nolfi (adapting the novel by Gerald Petievich) do an excellent job of setting things up and getting the story underway. Unfortunately, some of their hard work is undone during the movie's final third. Read full review
63
PremiereJessica Letkemann
Ultimately all of the ado about men in shades and dark suits running around shooting and shouting at each other comes to a satisfying, if predictable, conclusion. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A slick enough thriller about a presidential assassination attempt. It is also a rather mechanical, soulless affair that avoids politics or anything else that might clearly define who these characters are and why we should care. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
No, it's not the big screen version of "24." For one thing, Sutherland is in the wrong role. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
The Sentinel moves quickly and never becomes a bore. It does become something of a cartoon, though, which proves a major letdown for a movie that aims for something far more intelligent. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
We have reached a point in history when an ordinary TV show is often as good as or even better than an ordinary movie. And movies don't come much more ordinary than The Sentinel. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Sentinel works overtime to suggest what a thrill-a-minute world its characters inhabit; but only during the last 20 minutes does the movie's pulse (or ours) raise above a flatline. The actors look uniformly unhappy to be there - except for Basinger, who seems lost in a lithium haze. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Amid the nervousness Douglas and Sutherland do what they can to enliven their warring stereotypes. And now and then, blessedly, The Sentinel nudges toward camp. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin Chang
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. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
The Sentinel is so bland that it wants only to be as good as TV. Not as good as good TV, like "24." It merely aspires to be the Regis Philbin of D.C. thrillers. It isn't trying to dazzle you with style, complexity or intelligence. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
A contrived and tepid thriller that insists on wanting to interest us in its main plot -- the usual nefarious plan to assassinate the leader of the free world. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Douglas and Sutherland do crackling hostility with devilish glee, and the fireworks are nothing if not entertaining. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The Sentinel isn't an entire season of ''24" smushed into a bland two hours of movie? Does Kiefer Sutherland know? Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The movie gives away its shifty-eyed villain almost immediately. What it doesn't give away is why he betrayed his trust, who wants the president dead or what they hope to gain by killing him. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
The Sentinel isn't nearly as slick as it must have looked on the page. Those zingers are perfect fodder for a movie preview, but they just don't lead anywhere interesting on-screen. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Eva Longoria brings a crisp swagger and fluent Spanish to her role. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Director Clark Johnson (S.W.A.T.) has a flair for action, which compensates for the flattening effect of Gabriel Beristain's cinematography. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
Always an intriguing (though sometimes unpolished) actress, Basinger has softened the rough edges over the years to become an extremely watchable performer who deserves better roles than those in which she appears onscreen. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyGregory Kirschling
Looking back, 1993 was a golden age for thriller cinema. That was the year Hollywood hatched both "In the Line of Fire" and "The Fugitive," the two obvious and way superior antecedents for the very humdrum B-movie mash-up The Sentinel. Read full review
40
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Sentinel is a medium-dumb thriller that starts out with momentary promise but gets progressively sillier. Read full review
40
SlateGrady Hendrix
The screenwriters seem to have meticulously researched the inner workings of the White House by watching DVDs of "The West Wing," but, despite their hard work, casting sinks the film. With Longoria and Sutherland onboard it feels like an uneasy marriage of "24" and "Desperate Housewives." Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Plays like a 108 minute episode of Hawaii 5-0, minus the exotic locale. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The question is why. Why would a star of Michael Douglas's stature and intelligence attach himself to a Washington thriller as deeply ridiculous, suspense-free and potentially career-damaging as The Sentinel? Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
I can't find much slack to cut the film, except to say that it's a potboiler cooked in an upscale Teflon pot.
30
Village VoiceBill Gallo
Brought low by its premise and rendered idiotic by its subplot, this alleged political thriller spells momentary doom for star Michael Douglas. Read full review
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