No.98 : The Sentinel (2006)

The Sentinel at the IMDb

 Michael Douglas stars in this routine thriller which is a kind of mash up of ‘In the Line of Fire’ and ‘Spartan’ but falls short of either of those films.

Douglas plays a head security man in the Secret Service charged with looking after the president. He also looks after the first lady too to the extent of having an affair with her - well she is Kim Basinger. The President, who has got promotion since he was in ‘Sledgehammer’, doesn’t know and relies on his army of security men to protect him from the dozens of nutters who threaten the top man each day.

Things get a bit hairy for Douglas when an agent is shot and the presidential helicopter is brought down without the main man on board. His affair proves to be an Achilles’ heel as the bad guys get photos of him doing the dirty and blackmail him to doing his bidding.

Rival agent Kiefer Sutherland hates Douglas for shagging his wife too, and he starts to put the screws on the greying G-Man. With all sides moving in Douglas goes rogue and tries to find the traitor within his organisation who is still plotting to assassinate the president. Can he save the day and will the lovely Kim help out? Will the terrible British bad guy with the goatee beard serve up any menace whatsoever and will Michael get an award for doing his own stunts? - well there were quite a few stairs in that hotel.

The first half of this film was a lot better than the second. The first twenty minutes was a behind the scenes look at presidential security and it was interesting to see all the background guys and snipers set against a familiar mix of fast cuts and CCTV shots. Once the agent gets shot it becomes more of a character piece and Douglas doesn’t really have one. He’s meant to be no nonsense and meticulous but then he’s pumping the first lady - where does she get the time? He tries to be cool wearing his designer shades and fingering his earpiece but the main thought you have is why hasn’t be been pensioned off?

His detection was logical but not so inspired and given he got tracked down every five minutes, not that effective. The motivations of the bad guys were barely examined and why they needed a tough talking but poor acting British guy who had all the threat of a sock puppet I don’t know. The fake White House and ropey helicopter explosion stood out like sore thumbs but apart from that a good cast and some tight dialogue and action saved this from being a total turkey.

The sub plot with Kiefer and rookie agent Eva Longoria was largely pointless but at least added a bit of glamour. I wasn’t buying Kiefer’s ‘hate him but respect him’ routine and when they team up at the end it was no surprise at all. The ending itself was somewhat confusing with the good and bad guys getting mixed up as the overlong gunplay spilled out over many rooms and areas.

You will see a lot worse films, but it was in essence a decent TV movie with some stars on the bill.

THE Tag Line - No Presidential Pardon Granted        52%

No.88 : The Contract (2006)

The Contract at the IMDb

 You would think you’d have heard of the 2006 thriller starring Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, but the chances are you haven’t as it had the dreaded ‘DVD Premiere’ tag. Having seen it, it is not hard to see why as it’s a total mess despite what would appear to be a straightforward plot.

Cusack plays Ray, a widowed father to a wayward teen. He lost his wife to cancer two years previously and we know he’s still hurting as he wears a pink support bracelet. The off the rails kid is more stage school than reform school and his chat about reefers doesn’t ring true at all. The boy is excluded from school and to try for some bonding Cusack takes him on a hiking trip to the state park.

Meanwhile Morgan Freeman is planning a hit with four henchmen. They are all a bit colourful with one playing chess to show he’s the brains of the outfit. We aren’t told the target but stage one involves shoving a bloke in front of a car. Before stage two can take place Freeman is involved in a car smash of his own and wakes up chained to a hospital bed. His henchmen plot his escape as only Morgan has the bank codes and soon the standard ‘broken down truck’ ploy has freed the aged assassin.

Not quite however as the escape plan sends freeman down river with a shot FBI agent where he is rescued by Cusack and his son. What follows is the predictable cat and mouse set up you’d expect as Cusack tries to keep ahead of Morgan’s mates and return him to justice. Meanwhile the Borg Queen and some local hick sheriffs try to save the day. With the finale approaching will Freeman manage to fulfil ‘The Contract’ which is largely forgotten throughout the film but still serves as its title.

This film probably serves as the ‘Day 1’ showing on the ‘Troubled Production’ section of any film school course. The main issue is that it doesn’t make any sense and there are unnecessary complications that add nothing to the mix except those unwanted ingredients of confusion and dissatisfaction.

The main issue I had was with the whole police angle. They may have been solely employed as filler to the patchy script but they did nothing apart from comment on the coffee and  local law enforcement. The sub-plot of one of Freeman’s men being a plant wasn’t explored and I’ve no idea what the motivation of his boss, The Borg Queen, was.

The finale, where we were meant to be wrong footed about the assassination target, was totally fudged and I was totally expecting the revealed target and not the ridiculous suggestion that it might be the President.

The cast looked largely disinterested and Freeman totally didn’t convince as the hard as nails, military trained assassin. He wandered about in his suit trying to play mind games with his captors but exuded all the menace of Graham Norton on an extra camp day. Cusack looked aghast at some of the hokey dialogue he was provided and again his motivation was unclear. The idea that he was marching a hit man about the mountains to show his son about responsibility was as laughable as it was unbelievable.

There was possibly a good film in here somewhere with a clearly excellent cast and large budget that was at least used to show an impressive helicopter crash. It does however have to go down as a wasted opportunity with a messy script and sketchy characters signalling its failure before the first half hour had passed.

THE Tag Line - It’s only 90 minutes!  28%