A pathetic excuse to trot out a procession of teenage girls in the raw, performing graphic simulated sex acts with your basic suburban family man drooling all over himself.
Comment
05/17/08
The Babysitters (2008)
31 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 26
Fresh: 8
Rotten:18
Average Rating: 4.4/10
Consensus: Though built on an audacious and controversial premise, Babysitters teeters between exploitation and grossness due to uneven execution.
Theatrical Release:May 9, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: In this dark comedy, Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) may be just 16 years old, but she's smart. However, instead of just using her intelligence to get into college, she's started her own... [More]
Starring: John Leguizamo, Katherine Waterston, Cynthia Nixon, Andy Comeau
Director: David Ross
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Reviews for The Babysitters
It's bad enough that writer-director David Ross indulges in the very perverse kind of Lolita-tinged titillation the film pretends to lament, but then he ties everything up with an oh-well shrug.
05/16/08
Top CriticTheir customers are awkward enough that we're able to believe the girls are in control, or at least aware that they're the highlight of the men's week.
05/15/08
Until it crosses a shadowy line dividing serious comedy from distasteful exploitation, The Babysitters has the makings of an incisive satire of greed and lust in suburbia.
05/09/08
Top CriticDavid Ross's stylishly tawdry black comedy fits neatly between Heathers and American Beauty. The Babysitters Club this ain't.
05/09/08
The script has a stale air, like something that was doing the rounds for a long time before David Ross found backers to make a film out of it.
05/09/08
Top CriticAlthough the film is pitched as dark comedy, there's nothing very funny about the sexualization of teenagers.
05/09/08
Top CriticI'd call it a depressing soft-core porn flick, but that overstates its titillation factor. Mainly it's just icky.
05/09/08
Top CriticIt reads like a Cinemax special event, and as good as Leguizamo and Waterston (daughter of Sam) are, the skeevy, fantasy-fulfillment plot that drives David Ross' movie is uncomfortably risky business.
05/09/08
Top CriticThe film remains engaging in no small part because of the beguiling and enigmatic performance of [Katherine] Waterston, daughter of Law & Order star Sam Waterston.
05/09/08
Top CriticYou can see the potential in this off-kilter coming-of-age story, and it's a pity it never quite adds up.
05/09/08
Despite the racy content and the alarmist 18A classification, The Babysitters is a remarkably restrained and decent film. It's polished, smoothly edited and shot with simple elegance.
05/09/08
Top CriticIs Ross trying to mimic Michael Haneke, daring his audience to be disgusted by the very titillating premise which probably brought them to the movie in the first place?
05/08/08
confused
05/08/08
Like the pilot for an awful, misguided joint venture between FX and the CW.
05/08/08
There's little real wit here and, as far as teen-chick antics go, it's definitely no Heathers or Clueless, not even Cruel Intentions.
05/08/08
The premise is out of '70s porn, and so is the overbroad satire and almost total lack of conviction.
05/07/08
Top CriticBy undermining the subtle feminism of his movie, [director] Ross ends up undermining the whole thing, culminating in a terrifying parking-lot scene that doesn’t quite make sense.
05/07/08
Woefully reductive and painful.
05/07/08
Top CriticLike television’s Six Feet Under and the recent film Juno, it’s the perfect antidote to the dopey, butter-cream-frosted teen flicks of John Hughes -- Pretty in Pink with poison sauce.
05/07/08
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