**SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW** I don't think the Sentinel is a very good movie, which is too bad because he had a great cast and is a film in a genre I'm interested in (religious thriller). However, there are just too many characters for its own good and the movie shifts its focus too many times. For example the movie starts out (and should stay firmly focused, IMHO) following Miss Parker. It has her buying the apartment with weird tenants and even a bizarre flashback of her father (which really goes nowhere and seems to be there for purely shock value). At about 1/3 of the way in "scary" stuff starts happening, but that just consists of someone moving around in the apartment above her. So a private investigator is hired by her boyfriend to look into things. He ends up dead and the police come in to investigate. The officers who are played by Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken suspect foulplay. However, though the story follows them for awhile they simply fade out and are not seen from again (which begs the question, why even put these 2 characters in the movie?) The movie then follows the boyfriend as he investigates the history of the priest character and finally some of the mystery gets unravelled. Ultimately everything winds up at the building, but it is never adequately explained "why" Miss Parker is chosen instead of just some other random person, from the best I could tell it doesn't matter. The climax itself is more grotesque then scary and there really aren't that many scary moments at all in the entire film. The Sentinel could have been better if it did away with the subplots with the cop and maybe toned down the role of the boyfriend and just focused on the lead. It is afterall only an hour and a half, and when you think about it there really wasn't that many scenes of scary stuff at the building, some weird stuff, yes, but not scary. If you are interested in religious thrillers see Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, or the Exorcist they are all better movies and contain a much more interesting story.
Zoopansick
Zoopansick