Ever since John Frankenheimer's original and prophetic Manchurian Candidate was pulled off the market after John F. Kennedy's assassination, Hollywood has been shooting at Washington's biggest suits, usually wrapping their tyrannicidal epics in conspiracy theories (and The Parallax View begat Executive Action, which begat JFK, which begat Air Force One).

Garrison takes his job of guarding U.S. President Ballentine (David Rasche) very seriously, though not as seriously as he guards his on-going affair with the First Lady (Kim Basinger). Trouble for the President seems always to be lurking just off, and it falls to the Secret Service (that agency with the dodgy initials) to sort through the day-tray and answer-machine threats from an inexhaustible supply of cranks and loons. But when one of the agency's best men (and a best friend of Garrison's) is shot down on the steps to his house, real trouble seems to have finally arrived.

The Sentinel resembles a Harrison Ford film without actually having Harrison Ford. It's one of those manly capers like A Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games that flow ceaselessly from the testosterone-fueled imaginations of Tom Clancy or Ken Follet.

Garrison, compromised by his dalliance with Mrs. President, is soon set up by the underworld minds behind the plot to off the leader of the free world. Garrison sinks further into a full-blown crisis when one of his rivals, David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) is assigned to investigate him. In one of the film's most confusing plot turns, Breckinridge seems driven by revenge, as he believes that Garrison has also bedded his wife.

Even while running for his life, Garrison is fighting for his country. Being one of the service's chiefs, he knows how to conduct a complex investigation into tracking down the would-be assassins while on the lam in a stolen car. Garrison's gift for DIY phone tapping, computer hacking and lab analysis makes him a match for any smaller country's combined security service.

Director Clark Johnson keeps the action moving, and it has to be admitted that The Sentinel does generate some actual suspense. But the script is a Whitman's Sampler of clichés, which finally makes the film seem more like a Showtime Special rather than a movie for theatrical release.

The performances are all fine. Douglas, though perhaps past his prime as a lothario, makes a competent action hero. Sutherland has perfected the steely stare and assertive monotone of a top agent down to a science, while Basinger still knows how to play the leading lady, and also knows when to bow out gracefully when far more intimate moments of gunplay between the men are needed.