Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) agrees to babysit after her “dream” date stands her up. Expecting a dull evening, Chris settles down with three kids for a night of TV … and boredom. But when her frantic friend Brenda calls and pleads to be rescued from the bus station in downtown Chicago, the evening soon explodes into an endless whirl of hair-raising adventures! Babysitter and kids leave their safe suburban surroundings and head for the heart of the big city, never imagining how terrifyingly funny their expedition will become.Way before she grabbed an Oscar nomination for her searing performance as a world-weary prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas, Elisabeth Shue was known as one of the squeaky-clean actresses of the ’80s. Having made a splash in The Karate Kid and the ’60s-nostalgia TV series Call to Glory, Shue cemented her good-girl reputation with the charming but badly titled Adventures in Babysitting. Set in the John Hughes-style suburbs of Chicago, the titular adventures follow babysitter Chris (Shue), who agrees to watch the Anderson kids (Keith Coogan and Maia Brewton) when her boyfriend cancels their anniversary date. All is quiet on the home front until Chris is called upon to rescue her best friend (Penelope Ann Miller, also doing good-girl duty) from the seedy downtown bus station. She can’t leave the kids, and she can’t leave her friend alone in the big bad city, so she packs everyone in the station wagon and heads into Chicago. Screwball craziness begins as they encounter car thieves, knife-wielding gangs, gun-toting truck drivers, and, worst of all, Chris’s duplicitous boyfriend. It’s hardly mature entertainment, but Shue makes it work; when she wins over the audience at a blues club with her improv singing, you’ll be won over, too. In his directorial debut, Chris Columbus (who later went on to helm the sap-fests Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) gently skewers the suburbia white-bread mindset of the main characters, and plays up the comedy over the schmaltz with a subtlety of which he now seems incapable; the near romance between Shue and Coogan is played lightly and adorably. Look for brief appearances by art-house faves Lolita Davidovich as a college party girl and Vincent D’Onofrio as an unlikely savior. –Mark Englehart
Buy “Adventures in Babysitting” For Only $4.12
March 5, 2010
#1
With all due respect to the director of Adventures in Babysitting, Chris Colombus, he helped create one of the most racist films in American cinematic history.
Is it well crafted? Yes. Is the acting okay? Yes. Does it move along? Heck, just like a windup toy.
But please consider the plot:
A white girl (Elizabeth Shue, lightyears from her work in Leaving Las Vegas) is baby-sitting several white kids, when she gets a desperate phone call from her white girl friend. Why is her white girl friend desperate? Because she is stuck in a downtown bus station, surrounded by (gasp) African Americans!
Naturally, Shue races off, baby-sitting kids in tow, to rescue her friend from this tragic situation. Maybe she should have called Jesse Jackson first, eh?
When Shue gets downtown, various amusing adventures ensue. But how can it be ignored that each of the adventures involves meeting someone who lives in the inner city who is African American. And every single African American she meets is a criminal. There is only one exception: (are you ready? ‘spoiler’ ahead!): the African Americans who sing and dance!
Colombus must have been very disappointed that Steppin Fetchit (who adopted that stage name as a joke) was not alive and could not appear in his film.
There is one African American who helps Shue and who does not sing and dance. (Spoiler ahead) I kept hoping he would turn out to be an undercover cop. But, no, he was a car thief.
It would appear that Mr. Colombus is not aware of any non-singing, non-dancing African Americans who are not thieves, thugs or crooks.
The film is a disgrace. Really. The fact that it is well produced makes it even worse–it can not be written off as a cheapy done by people who did not know better.
For anyone who has seen Mr. Colombus’ other films, however, the racism of this film should come as no surprise. “Home Alone” was set in a similarly all white world (there was a single African American with a speaking part of a few lines, and no other non-white cast members).
Even in J.R. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which devoted a great amount of time to racism issues (between ‘muggles’ and magic practitioners, a brilliant symbolic foray into racism by Rowling), Colombus managed to dilute her anti-racism message. Look at the first two Harry Potter films, which he directed: multi-cultural England in Colombus’ hands becomes an almost entirely all white country. Only after Colombus leaves the series do non-white actors get a chance.
This film should not be praised. It should be held up as an example of cultural bias and racism.
I generally do not write negative reviews, but this film has been given a ‘free ride’ for way too long by American film critics. But they are the same critics who praise ‘Gone With the Wind’, a four hour film about the civil war which does not once mention the word ‘slave’. The racism of ‘Gone With The Wind’ has been ignored by most reviewers. It took a long time for me to realize how racist it was. When I first saw it as a kid, I thought Scarlett O’Hara must have been a wonderful employer! I assumed that Scarlett must have had a wonderful dental plan for her African American employees, to keep them so loyal!
March 5, 2010
#2
I bought this DVD based on the 87 good reviews. There was a one-star rating, but I thought it was an odd data point. I forgot what my HS history teacher told us: 50,000 Frenchmen can be wrong. Frankly, those who thought it was a 5-bagger must have all their taste in their mouths. I also question their sense of humor: there’s not much that’s funny about this film.
Still, if you are dying to watch a movie, and it’s the only thing on TV, go for it, but don’t waste your money buying it.
PS. Some of the language is a bit hard for a PG-13 rating. I don’t advise watching it with kids.
PPS. The poster artists’ immagination never ceases to amaze me. There is nothing in the movie that even comes close to the picture on the cover.
March 5, 2010
#3
It might not be a bad movie but the start is so slow that you’re bored out of your mind before anything funny happens, and when it does you’re not in the mood for it anyway.
March 5, 2010
#4
This movie is old, but its funny. Totally cheesy like most old movies, but still has its funny moments. Makes u think twice about babysitting….hehe.
March 5, 2010
#5
if i’ve said it once, i’ve said it a million times: keith coogan, where are you? this 1987 flick is hysterical! ya think?