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      The Sentinel

      1991 2h 24m Mystery & Thriller List
      Reviews 70% 250+ Ratings Audience Score A medical student finds a shrunken head in his luggage and becomes obsessed with finding its origins. Read More Read Less

      Critics Reviews

      View All (3) Critics Reviews
      Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader Rated: 2/4 Jan 31, 2002 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 3/5 Jul 31, 2005 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews But the film itself was too poorly executed to sustain an interest in its long drawn out and meandering story. Rated: C Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Read all reviews

      Audience Reviews

      View All (8) audience reviews
      Audience Member Very odd French film about a medical student who encounters a stranger on the train and then discovers a shrunken head in his luggage. He becomes obsessed with the head, trying to find out everything about it, the origin, who put it there, who the head is. It’s an odd tale, and at 2 ½ hours long, it’s not a fast paced thriller, it requires a lot of patience. The acting is good, the lead does a nice job of portraying his determination and paranoia. I’ll admit, I didn’t quite follow what was going on, and the movie certainly doesn’t end with everything solved, it just sort of ends. It may disappoint a lot of people but it’s certainly a very different film with some very interesting ideas. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member a classic thriller plot with excellent direction. it starts out very surrealistic but as it goes it changes style and ends up with a very real remark. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Given that the film is ultimately about leaving behind the cold-war world, I don't think it could have found a more oblique way there. This movie feels much longer than its nearly 2.5 hours, partly because of its distance, washed-out colours, and near faceless characters (also, the diplomat seems miscast with an actor far too young for the role). Desplechin's later films are apparently much better so there's no need to a be a completist in this case. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Euro thriller that hints at Le Carre subterfuge and starts promisingly with Hitchcockian shenanigans on a train but by the end you are left baffled, bewildered and most tellingly, bored. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic (albeit Emmanuelle Devos makes for welcome eye candy), the pace of the film is best described as langurous and you wish a good editor had got their hands on it. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Premier film, et deja une maitrise impressionnante. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member deroutant, sombre, sans concession... ceci n'est pas un film de divertissement, anti-critique et shrek fans passez votre chemin. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

      Cast & Crew

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      Photos

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      The Sentinel

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis A medical student finds a shrunken head in his luggage and becomes obsessed with finding its origins.
      Director
      Arnaud Desplechin
      Screenwriter
      Arnaud Desplechin, Pascale Ferran, Noémie Lvovsky, Emmanuel Salinger
      Production Co
      Universal/Universal Int
      Genre
      Mystery & Thriller
      Original Language
      French (Canada)
      Box Office (Gross USA)
      $7.5K
      Runtime
      2h 24m