Synopsis

Veteran Secret Service agent Pete Garrison is framed after a colleague is murdered and evidence suggests that a mole inside the agency is helping plan an assassination of the president. Forced to flee while the FBI investigates him, Garrison must uncover the real traitor, protect the First Lady, and stop the conspiracy before the president's security detail is compromised.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is based on the 2003 novel The Sentinel by Gerald Petievich, a former Secret Service agent. Screenwriter George Nolfi adapted the book for the film.

• Michael Douglas served as one of the film's producers as well as its lead performer.

• Although the story is set largely in Washington, D.C., much of the production took place in Toronto, Mississauga, and Kleinburg, Ontario. Toronto locations were used to represent several American government settings, while an Ontario studio supplied the Oval Office set.

• Secret Service consultants were brought in to help give the production's procedures and firearms training a more credible feel.

• Eva Longoria reportedly excelled during the cast's firearms training. A production consultant said her shooting score would have surpassed that of roughly 90 percent of actual Secret Service personnel.

• The password "CRYSTAL" is explained in the film as meaning "follow my orders."

• The movie's premise draws on the unusual dramatic tension of placing a highly trusted presidential protection agent under suspicion, turning the protective detail itself into a potential threat.

• The Sentinel was released in the United States on April 21, 2006, with a PG-13 rating and a 108-minute running time.