THE SENTINEL |

Production Company: 20th Century Fox/ Regency Enterprises/ Further Films

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox

Cast: Michael Douglas as Agent Pete Garrison, Kiefer Sutherland as David Breckinridge, Kim Basinger as First Lady Sarah Ballentine, Eva Longoria as Jill Marin, David Rasche as President Ballentine, Raoul Bhaneja as Agent Aziz Hassad, Simon Reynolds as Tom Dipaola, Danny A. Gonzales as Hugo Ortega

Crew: Clark Johnson (director); Gerald Petievich (based on his novel); George Nolfi (screenwriter and co-producer); Bill Carraro (executive producer); Michael Douglas, Marcy Drogin, Arnon Milchan (producers)

Synopsis:
Pete Garrison is a U.S. Secret Service agent who saved a president’s life by jumping in front of a hail of bullets, over twenty years ago.

Well-liked and respected by his colleagues in the Secret Service, Garrison is a career agent who now heads the First Lady’s detail. He lives in a high-level, orderly world of hierarchical structure, plans, maps, motorcades, code names, lingo and procedures. It’s a universe that makes sense, until secrets begin to tear it apart. Pete’s fellow agent and friend, Charlie Merriweather, hints at wanting to share critical and confidential information. Before that can happen, however, Merriweather is shot dead at his house in a crime that is made to look like a botched robbery.

The investigation falls to the Secret Service’s top investigative agent, David Breckinridge, a volatile combination of by-the-book and hothead, Garrison’s protégé, and, until recently one of Garrison’s best friends. Breckinridge follows the evidence and only the evidence and scrupulously tries to avoid working from his gut. That’s what being a great investigator requires. Garrison, as perhaps the greatest protective agent in the service, often has to work from gut, from pure instinct. In protective work that is often all you have.

Garrison’s and Breckinridge’s recent falling out was triggered by Breckinridge’s mistaken belief that Garrison was having an affair with Breckinridge’s now ex-wife.

Jill Marin, a tough, sassy and ambitious young agent who just graduated second in her class at the Secret Service Academy, arrives for her first field posting. She has requested a work detail with Breckinridge because Garrison, while leading a field instruction exercise at the Academy told Jill that Breckinridge was the best investigator in the entire Service.

Together the trio begins to uncover what appears to be an inside job to assassinate the president – a traitor in the ranks of the Secret Service. It’s never happened in the institution’s 141-year history.

Suspicion ultimately falls on Garrison, who’s going to find it extremely difficult to clear his name because someone is framing him.

Whoever is framing Garrison knows he’s vulnerable because he’s devoting considerable effort to hiding a monumental secret. Suspected of being treasonous, Garrison goes on the run, pursued by Breckinridge and Marin – his own colleagues – as he tries to nail the real mole and save the president’s life.

Other Info:

Film Fetish trivia:
Director Clark Johnson is no stranger to law enforcement dramas, having directed the big screen adaptation of S.W.A.T., as well as numerous episodes of HBO’s The Wire and the FX hit The Shield.