Click Poster to Purchase
 |  | Get Showtimes... |
Film: The Sentinel (2006) [PG-13] 108 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $9.00
Where Viewed: Regal Cinemas Parkway Plaza 12, Tukwila, WA
When 1st Seen: 22 April 2006
Time: 8:05 p.m.
Review Dedicated to: Michael G. of Hastings, MN
To give you a little background on this film, permit me please to share my box office experience of yesterday as I will do every now and again. I approached the sizeable line outside the Regal Cinema Parkway Plaza 12 with some trepidation. It was dark. The parking lot is not well lit. There are medium-sized signs posted prominently throughout the parking lot suggesting that the theatre is not responsible for stolen items or damage to cars—which never does instill the confidence one hopes for just when one is about to enter a facility for a couple of hours knowing full well, therefore, that perhaps one’s most prized asset will be unaccompanied in a place self-described as ‘unsafe’. The crowd was mostly rowdy teenagers out for a good time—which doesn’t bother me at all. So, as I neared the box office, I thought, “Should I just avoid these lines and use the ticket machine?” But I know that Regal does not yet have the system worked out so that you can get your movie club points at their ticket machines like AMC does. As I felt I might be close to getting a free ticket I thought I’d better just use the human being. Unfortunately, part of the reason the line was so long was because this spry gentleman with a flat top haircut and a healthy look of skepticism on his face was trying to get the box office agent to recommend what movie he and his date should see. People, I’ve written about this before, and I cannot emphasize enough how frustrating it can be to spontaneously decide to go to the movies and then have to pick from things you’ve not heard of due to the crazy time you arrived. Welcome to www.movieEVERYday.com--please, visit this site daily and you’ll always know what to see. Always go out prepared! Well, anyway, so, after a bit of frustration from the box office agent in trying to explain the plot of this movie knowing that the line was growing longer and longer and this was going to come down on her, she handed him a printout with mini-summaries of the current films. However, this did not make him happy, he said, “Well it looks like the only thing that fits the timing is The Sentinel. What’s that about? I mean do you know who’s in it?” She said, “Oh, Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, and Kim Basinger. I hear it’s pretty good.” He scratched his head, looked at the sheet a bit more and said, mind you the line just keeps growing behind him and the people around are all looking at each other like they might be going to eat him or something, “Ok, yeah, The Sentinel. I’ll take two tickets.” She responded rapid fire, “That will be $19 please.” To which he said, and I am not making this up, “Do you offer any discounts? That’s a lot of money.” When is the last time this guy went to the movies in a big city? Discounts? Two people, $9.50 each, that’s $19 bucks! Hopefully, he wasn’t hungry because the concession stand prices might have sent him into apoplexy. Trying to keep her cool, the box office agent replied, “Yes, we offer three: military ID, senior citizens, and children under 12.” Clearly, he didn’t fit into two of these categories, the third was a possibility given the haircut. “Yikes, nope. Oh my. This isn’t good.” Now, all the while he’s fidgeting with his wallet as if opening it to take out cash is a form of torture for him. He tossed the wallet up off the counter and caught it with his other hand. “You know what? I think I better go ask her if she even really wants to see this movie.” Ah, it was classic. The people in line whom, by now, had all swarmed the front to figure out what was going on with this line, the people whom had started to look like they truly might eat him for real, could have mobbed him and beaten the proverbial ‘c’ out of him. Instead, they just shrugged, looked at the sky, a lot of people chuckled and probably hoped much like I did that there would be at least 15 previews before their movie started. So, the moral of the story is: (a) print the W.I.P. Scale™ from movieEVERYday.com every day before you leave the house, (b) always ask your date, prior to even getting out of the car, if she/he really even wants to see the movie, and (c) go ahead and give up on your Regal points if you want to get into the movie theatre on time.
And, the story illustrates another point that ties to this review…what is The Sentinel (2006)? Well, for reasons unknown, the folks at 20th Century Fox Distribution did not decide to market the film in ways that caught my eye. I do recall seeing a few previews, but yesterday, for example, every time I loaded movieEVERYday.com, I saw new ads for Silent Hill—guess what I am going to see today? I saw no ads at all for The Sentinel. The movie poster only recently became available for purchase, etc. Well, this can be a sign that the studio doesn’t think the movie is going to do that well and doesn’t want to waste money on advertising it. Of course, we all know that they also can be known to spend a ton of money advertising a movie that is a complete flop—check out American Dreamz—the early box office numbers are not looking so dreamy. So, here’s the scoop on The Sentinel (2006). While it possesses a boring, slightly recycled title—I think I would have called it either “A Flip of the Coin” which hasn’t been used as a title of a film or variation thereof since 1919 or “The Traitor Within” which hasn’t been used since 1942 (both , according to IMDB) vs. 1977 which was the most recent use of The Sentinel, nonetheless, it is a decently intriguing, mystery thriller-type movie. It is nowhere nearly as good as a season of “24”—Kiefer Sutherland’s main job when he’s not doing the voice of animated lions in The Wild--but then actor-turned-director Clark Johnson didn’t have 24 x 42 = 1008 minutes now did he? A lot of movies have been made with similar concepts, but what I liked about this one was the thought of a mole within the Secret Service. This was very hard to imagine, and that made the concept absorbing if not engaging. There are a couple of other interesting, little twists regarding Michael Douglas’s character (Pete Garrison). Turns out that Agent Garrison, one of the most decorated and celebrated agents in the history of the Secret Service, the guy who took a bullet for the president, has sort of a history of not exactly always following the rules of engagement shall we say. Therefore, he becomes a likely candidate to actually be the mole leading the plot to take out the president.
There is one word that some people might use to describe this film—overly contrived (which I guess is actually two words). In some ways, they might be correct. The plot is a little bit like a chemistry experiment you might do in high school. If you mix sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid – that’s baking soda and vinegar to the rest of us – you know what’s going to happen, right? Neutralization—basically, carbon dioxide is going to be released and salt water left behind. So, in this film, they poured the two together, in one beaker, to distract us from seeing the slightly more dangerous mixing of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid – that’s lye and stomach acid to the rest of us – in the other. It’s the same trick magicians use – a sort of slight of hand maneuver. And, any time you do this in a movie, unless you are M. Night Shyamalan-clever, the result can seem stale and contrived in a movie. Well, so the point is there is a lot of bad chemistry in this film. Agent David Breckinridge, Mr. Sutherland’s character, has it in his head that Agent Garrison with whom he used to be great friends, had an affair with his wife. Agent Jill Marin (Eva “one of ABC’s Desperate Housewives” Longoria--who seems to be in this film more as eye candy than anything else which is both sad and disappointing) is fresh on the job, newly assigned to Agent Breckinridge, yet has a major hero worship complex for Agent Garrison who taught some of her Secret Service Academy classes, in other words, more bad chemistry. There is also a major clue that lets you figure out who the mole is fairly early on if you are looking and paying attention carefully. You’ll have to wait until near the end to find out why this person is a mole though. I caught the clue, and I’m not trying to be self-congratulatory because it’s a pretty obvious clue. Believe it or not, I usually don’t catch these things. So contrived, formulaic, derivative, recycled, these are all terms that people will use to describe The Sentinel no doubt. And, they may well be correct. Fortunately, I have the luxury of my own W.I.P. Scale™ which allows me to like and even recommend such a movie with a mediocre rating that doesn’t sound as bad as 2 stars or C-. I can give it a $9.00 and feel satisfied. After all, that is close to what I actually paid this time around to see it, and I didn’t leave feeling I wanted my money back. And, the way I look at it, I came out with a pretty funny story about a guy trying to buy a movie ticket to see a movie he’s never heard of with a girl he’s not even sure wants to go to the movies in the first place.
| CD | The Book | |
| Related DVD | Related DVD | Related DVD |
No comments:
Post a Comment