CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
65 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
60 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
xx Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
49 Dark Matter
35 Deal
62 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
83 Edge of Heaven, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
57 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
51 Jihad for Love, A
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
55 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
55 Noise
63 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
46 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
80 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
50 Sangre de mi sangre
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
67 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
68 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
55 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
66 Unsettled
90 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
xx War, Inc.
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
75 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Babysitters, The
Peace Arch Entertainment

Babysitters, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 35 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
N/A out of 10
based on 11 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 0 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for disturbing strong sexual content, language and some drug use - involving teens

Starring John Leguizamo, Katherine Waterston, Cynthia Nixon, Andy Comeau, Lauren Birkell, and Louisa Krause

Sixteen-year-old Shirley Lyner is an honor student working as a babysitter and saving for college. She's developed a crush on Michael Beltran, the father of two of her babysitting regulars. One night on the way home, Michael and Shirley kiss, and he pays her a little something extra. They continue their affair, using the nights Shirley babysits to cover for their time together. Soon Shirley finds herself becoming a high school Heidi Fleiss, taking a percentage every time one of her friends babysits for the married men. But it's only a matter of time before Shirley starts to lose control of her operation and her tightly wound world begins to unravel. (Peace Arch Entertainment)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: David Ross  
DIRECTED BY: David Ross  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: May 9, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
If Leguizamo imports a hint of pathos into his performance, Waterston adds a dollop of menace to hers, delivering another of Ross's attacks on what separates girls from men. In this world, women are their own worst enemy.
Read Full Review
63
TV Guide Ken Fox
There's no getting around the fact that Ross's whole cynical premise is based on the lurid male assumption that nubile, college-bound teens have few qualms about selling themselves, a fantasy as deluded as the targets of Ross's barbed arrows.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
The film remains engaging in no small part because of the beguiling and enigmatic performance of Waterston, daughter of "Law & Order" star Sam Waterston. It is a shame she isn't given a better context in which to thrive.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Attempting to be this generation's "Risky Business," The Babysitters is the sort of ribald morality tale that manages to feel sleazy and decorous at the same time.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Alissa Simon
It ultimately fails to deliver on the audacity of its premise. Neither truly original nor a guilty-pleasure genre spin, the picture lacks a hook for general audiences who may find the subject matter distasteful as presented.
Read Full Review
40
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
It reads like a Cinemax special event, and as good as Leguizamo and Waterston are, the skeevy, fantasy-fulfillment plot that drives David Ross' movie is uncomfortably risky business.
Read Full Review
33
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The premise is out of '70s porn, and so is the overbroad satire and almost total lack of conviction.
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Ed Gonzalez
Ultimately, the film's view of female self-loathing and girl-on-girl exploitation is woefully reductive and painful.
Read Full Review
30
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Shirley’s instant metamorphosis from insecure high school student to ruthless madam is ludicrous in spite of the best efforts of the talented Ms. Waterston to convince you otherwise. The Babysitters has the increasingly jerky momentum of a film that was butchered in the cutting room, sacrificing continuity and character development to whip the plot forward.
Read Full Review
25
New York Post Kyle Smith
I'd call it a depressing soft-core porn flick, but that overstates its titillation factor. Mainly it's just icky.
Read Full Review
0
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
A special place in purgatory must be reserved for John Leguizamo, who produced and stars in The Babysitters, a loathsome slice of exploitation at its most cynical and crass.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use