MICHAEL DOUGLAS - MOVIE REVIEWS: THE SENTINEL

The Sentinel , which was screened for critics, is not faring much better at their hands. Stephen Holden in the New York Times leads off his review by asking, "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?" His co-star, Kiefer Sutherland, doesn't fare much better. Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe remarks that he appears to be reprising his Jack Bauer character in 24 for the movie. "You would think Sutherland would want to use his downtime from that show to wow us with something we didn't already know he could do. Can he dance? Does he juggle? If saving the world isn't yet boring for him, watching him do it in 'The Sentinel was boring for me." Kyle Smith in the New York Post calls the movie "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." To Jan Stuart in Newsday, the movie is just plain "stupid." On the other hand, Kenneth Turan, writing in the Los Angeles Times, describes it as "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." Likewise Philip Wuntch writes in the Dallas Morning News: "A thoroughly professional job, The Sentinel is always watchable and often more than that." In between those extreme critical reactions to the movie is Claudia Puig of USA Today, who says of the movie: "It's a competent, if forgettable and implausible, thriller with some decent acting on the part of Sutherland and Michael Douglas as Secret Service agents."

21/04/2006