The Sentinel is a movie in which one's perception of the proceedings will be impacted by a familiarity (or lack thereof) with the TV series 24. For those for whom that number means little more than "two dozen," The Sentinel is a Michael Douglas movie. For those for whom 24 has created a weekly television appointment, this is a Kiefer Sutherland movie in which Michael Douglas shows up to steal an inordinate amount of screen time. I'm tempted to say that Desperate Housewives fans may provide a third perspective, but Eva Longoria's role here is so different from that in the weekly series that there's no sense of déjà vu. Not so for Sutherland, though, who brings more than a little of the maverick Jack Bauer to his role as by-the-book Secret Service investigator David Breckinridge. As written, there are as many dissimilarities as similarities between Sutherland's two alter-egos, but the actor bulldozes through them. Most of the time during The Sentinel, we're not so much watching Breckinridge as we are Bauer. All that's missing are a few well-placed utterances of "dammit!"
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