"The Sentinel"

Directed by: Clark Johnson

Starring: Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria

MPAA rating: PG-13 Running time: 105 minutes Best suited for: insomniacs

Least suited for: plot yearners, coincidence counters

Acorn's Rating Guide:

Maybe they thought we'd forgotten about Kevin Costner in "No Way Out." Or about Clint Eastwood in "In the Line of Fire." Not extraordinary films, but pretty good efforts-well-developed films with coherent plot structures and a semblance of coincidence-free continuity, attributes that "The Sentinel" is sorely lacking.

In "The Sentinel" Michael Douglas plays aging Secret Service agent Pete Garrison-passed over for promotion several times but still good enough to hold his own at the White House. Out of the blue, a former snitch from Garrison's old Treasury Department days steps forward and tells Pete there's a plot to kill the president. The snitch has some evidence but he wants a million dollars for it. How he got the evidence we don't really know, but there's enough information for the Secret Service to take the informant seriously-and also to believe that one of their own might be involved.

And then Pete Garrison gets blackmailed. He receives explicit photos of himself kissing the first lady (Kim Bassinger). Because, you see, Pete and the first lady are lovers. I'm sorry, but even after suspending my disbelief to the outer realm of reality, can I accept that an active Secret Service agent and the first lady find the wherewithal to carry on a White House affair? I can believe Hobbits, I can believe a giant ape climbed the Empire State Building-but this is taking movie magic a touch too far.

Because of Pete's affair, he fails a lie-detector test (although, presumably, that wasn't one of the questions), and suddenly he's a suspect. His ex-best friend Dave (Keifer Sutherland) is also a Secret Service agent and Dave's assigned to sniff out the mole. Of course Dave suspects Pete first (because he believes that Pete had an affair with his wife). Does the first lady know? Anyway, they're no longer friends, and then somebody fills Pete's bank account with gobs of money-never a good sign in a movie-so Petcold-cocks a couple of agents and flees, hoping to find the real traitor for himself.

And that was the good part. Once Dave and Pete begin catand-mousing their way around Washington, the action's okay enough for those of us who don'really care why people begin shooting each other. Pete manages to track down a few clues-but with such little effort that one truly admires his Secret Service training. And Pete's first destination, once he's a fugitive, is to

Wseek out Secret Service-shrouded first lady (ostensibly to glean certain information), but couldn't he have just called?

The plot meanders like this- Pete (by chance or coincidence) closing in on the plotters and Dave closing in on Pete, neither man making many false steps. Eva Longoria plays Jill Marin, a neophyte agent Dave keeps on his team, even in crisis mode, despite her being a neophyte agent. That's about the sum of her part.

A n d when the mole is ferreted out- well, that makes no sense either. We don't really know the plotters' motivation or any real reason to kill this particular president at this particular time. Even in films like "The Manchurian Candidate" (the Sinatra version, especially), credibility may be strained but at least the reason for the assassination attempt makes sense. There's a bit of "Little Nikita" (Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix) thrown into "The Sentinel's" plot stew, but that's never really explained either.

All this action and nobody's really sure why. That about sums up "The Sentinel." See it if you're a Michael Douglas or a "24" fan (Keifer doesn't do much on the big screen that he doesn't do on the little one), but don't dig too deep for reason or rationale. And the ending? Well, sleeping with the first lady isn't such a great career move after all. Who'da thunk?