The Sentinel

Michael Douglas stars as a Secret Service agent having an affair with the first lady (an atrocious Kim Basinger) in this preposterous and silly movie. Douglas’ character is being framed in an assassination plot against the president in a scenario so unlikely that the movie almost comes off as a comedy. Kiefer Sutherland is on hand as a fellow agent who thinks Douglas was sleeping with his wife. It’s just remarkable how inept the script is. The casting is good, but director Clark Johnson is sloppy, no thanks to the ridiculous screenplay he has to work with. Douglas and Sutherland strain to make their performances credible, but it is a lost cause. The movie goes too far in too many places, spinning out of control in its first half hour and never looking back. This is the stuff of direct-to-video productions, but Douglas is in it, so it got a theatrical release. Pure garbage.