Disconcertingly, Michael Douglas looks as if he has suddenly acquired a new, younger face in this political thriller from Clark Johnson. But no matter, he's always worth watching in a part which he can sink his (now pearly) teeth into.

Douglas plays Pete Garrison, a secret service operative assigned to guard President Ballantine's wife, Sarah, having distinguished himself by saving Reagan's life some 20 years previously. He's framed when the President's helicopter is destroyed by a heat-seeking missile, fortunately with no one important inside. It looks as if he might be responsible, but more probably that he has been derelict in his duty.

He's also carrying on a surreptitious affair with Sarah. She is played by Kim Basinger, and a more unlikely piece of casting one cannot readily remember.

Basinger is a better actress than we often give her credit for. But so impossibly beautiful a First Lady does seem a little hard to believe, though Jackie Kennedy, I suppose, got close. And David Rasche as President John Ballantine looks like a rather grey version of Kennedy, who is not only prepared to sign the Kyoto Agreement but knows what the fickle American public wants.

"I think we should hold hands," he tells his wife as they leave the presidential limo for a school walkabout.They look for a moment like Charles and Diana trying to make it through their engagements without looking at each other.

Eva Longoria as an improbably pert rookie agent is given little to do but look scrumptious in revealing black pants. Also in the cast is Kiefer Sutherland's Breckinridge, who is jealous of Garrison, despite being his protégé and once his best friend, and he fancies Eva enough to be thoroughly rude to her when her outfit inspires his secretive lust.

The whole film can't make up its mind whether to be a slightly upmarket Jean-Claude Van Damme-type vehicle or a more serious post-9/11 thriller. Unfortunately, it succeeds in being neither. But it's not the fault of Douglas, though he is named as one of the producers. Maybe he chose the wrong director in veteran actor Johnson, whose only other movie was S.W.A.T.

Douglas paints a decent portrait of a man whose hierarchical world is made up of maps, motorcades, code names and strict procedures but who still likes to work from the gut, using pure instinct. But the film never really allows him to flesh out his character properly.

One can't help remembering what he recently said about the impossibility of making a substantial movie in Hollywood nowadays. Substantial The Sentinel certainly isn't, but at least Michael Douglas tries.