Written by: Susan Granger
www.susangranger.com

As producer/star, Michael Douglas usually chooses projects more intelligent and provocative than this prosaic, predictable action thriller.

Pete Garrison (Douglas) is a veteran Secret Service agent who took a bullet for President Ronald Reagan back in 1981. His current assignment in the administration of (fictional) President Ballantine (David Rasche) is to guard the First Lady (Kim Basinger), with whom he's also having an affair. Complications occur when there are rumors about an upcoming presidential assassination and suspicion arises about a traitor inside the White House. After failing a polygraph test because of his indiscretion, Pete's implicated and goes on the lam from investigators, like his former best friend (Kiefer Sutherland), who bears a personal grudge, and his rookie partner (Eva Longoria). Realizing he's being framed, Pete must uncover the real renegade mole.

Competently directed by Clark Johnson from a muddled, cliché-filled screenplay by George Nolfi, based on Gerald Petievich's novel, it's mildly diverting but never suspenseful, since it's not difficult to guess where the blame lies. And since there's never been a blemish on the Secret Service, it's hard to believe that Agency's thorough background checks would not have revealed someone with ties to the KGB.

Channeling Clint Eastwood from the far-superior "In the Line of Fire" with touches of his previous turn in "The American President," Michael Douglas holds the screen with a commanding presence. But Kiefer Sutherland comes off far better in "24," while "Desperate Housewives" Eva Longoria is engaging eye candy. Martin Donovan heads the President's Secret Service squad, while Blair Brown surfaces briefly as National Security Advisor.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Sentinel" is a shallow, implausible 5. Or, as Agent Longoria says, "On a gut level, it doesn't make sense."