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Ah, here comes the exposition: Michael is dead. He�s condemned to hell now for trying to murder Father Halloran, and for murdering his wife. Michael was killed by Franchino, who needed to save the old priest. See, the apartment is over the Gate to Hell. And a Priest (or nun) who was nearly damned needs to protect it at all times, or something. And Alison is primo material to be the next Sentinel. But the Damned aren�t going to make her pre-game easy, see: they�re the Damned, it�s what they do. So Michael, Chazen, the Cannibal-Lesbos (ooh, punk band name for grabs!), and various other nasties start emerging as the clock keeps ticking. Hideous mutants and creatures are pulling themselves along after a weeping, hysterical Alison� in the attic home of Father Halloran, creepy little Charles Chazen offers Alison a knife to use on herself, because it�ll be so much easier than being vigilant until the next Sentinel comes along� but with Father Halloran and Mosignor Franchino�s praying to help her out, Alison devotes her life to the Big Guy and the monsters and damned souls all scuttle back to hell.
A week later, the apartment building is torn down by wrecking balls, and a young couple (Nana Visitor! Tom Berenger! What are y�all doing here!?) are shown their new apartment building, it�s quite and with no other tenants, other than that retired nun in the penthouse�
Cut to Alison sitting in her habit, clutching a crucifix and her dead, all-white eyes staring without seeing out at the City�.
Fade Out.
Well, a Catholic sect with controlling power over the Church�s well-publicized and wide-spread property holdings in NYC, The Gateway to Hell, a sprawling cast of talented older actors and up-and-coming young turks, back storys for the central characters, some good grue and some pretty creepy imagry� what isn�t to like?
Waiter, this meal just doesn�t taste right.
Like I said before, sometimes a simple recipe with common ingredients will taste vastly superior to an epic and overly-complicated recipe filled with the best of the best�
First off, Director Michael Winner was more often a hack than anything else during his long and varied career. Despite some early films that (though flawed) showed a definite voice (Cool Mikado, I�ll Never Forget Whats�isname), Winner will always be best known as the man who unleashed the Death Wish franchise on us (he would go on to direct the 2nd and 3rd installations in that lamentable series as well as the first). The direction in The Sentinel isn�t particularly inventive, or noteworthy. He managed to assemble a rather remarkable cast, but in some cases (Goldblum, Orbach, Visitor, Berenger, D�Angelo, Walken) it�s only remarkable because of the careers that would follow.
Acting-wise though, The Sentinel does pretty well. Cristina Raines is solid as our central-screamer, and though I didn�t exactly relate to her (for some reason I have trouble relating to hysterical suicidal models) I did hope she�d make it out unscathed. As Michael Chris Sarandon really helps hold this meandering script together, and despite his sordid past and icky-end, he was likeable in a morally ambiguous kind of way. Hell, he tried to help at least. He certainly chews a bit of scenery once he is Dead & Damned, but then looks a bit bemused and lost during the Damned Mob sequence. John Carradine seems in even worse shape buried under latex and fright wig in this than he would 3 years later in Joe Dante�s The Howling, but it was fun having him there. Martin Balsam walks off with a paycheck and third billing after an unconvincing single scene. Burgess Meredith really worked for me, as that sweet old neighbor who is actually a damned soul intent on forcing you to slit your own wrists� I have one just like him. There was a bit of controversy surrounding this flik when it first opened, people claimed that Michael Winner had cast real-life freaks and deformed people for the Legion Of The Damned (well, Small Mob of the Doomed, really) sequence during the finale. And it shows, which is needless to say a bit more unsettling than a lot of CGI or latex�
Oooh, it was a mob! That�s great! So far each flik viewed for these pages has contained an angry mob! So what if this one was from Hell� heck, that makes �em even Angrier, I�d expect!
Ultimately, the movie fails because it sprawls and slumps. Winner seems to have some great ideas, he just isn�t sure how to compress them into a compact story. The cops, the priests, the models & photographers, the damned souls, the sneak thief, Michael�s past, Alison�s past� it�s too much for one movie.
The novel (by Jeffrey Konvitz) got a sequel, the movie didn�t. I�d be curious to read them.
Unintentional Laugh Out Loud: �You don�t understand� I killed my father last night and he�s already dead!!!�
Sometimes too much spice will really fuck up the meal.
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