SnoopyStyle
High schooler Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) babysits for Michael (John Leguizamo) and Gail Beltran (Cynthia Nixon). Shirley starts making out with Michael and then have sex. Michael lets out the secret to his friend and word spreads. Shirley recruits her eager friend Melissa Rowan. Next it's quiet Brenda. They start a business called The Babysitters. Brenda brings in her stepsister Nadine who starts her own competing service with other girls.It's salacious without any redeeming value. It treats the material with no intention of being anything better. It has neither any satire nor any tension. This is not a serious treatment of this creepy subject matter. It's basically nothing. Waterston shows some interesting shades at times in this early work but there is nothing else.
TxMike
This movie was available on Netflix streaming. I wanted to watch something meaningless in spare time when I had a few minutes to kill. So I saw it in 4 or 5 sittings.So the movie begins as just another slice of urban life, parents go to work, kids go to school, and some of the girls get babysitting jobs in the evening. But then one man in his 40s gets sweet on his babysitter. She is taken completely by surprise at his advances, but soon relaxes and enjoys the attention. She is surprised when he gives her a wad of money for her "babysitting", $200 in all.So he gets hooked on his young lover and after a few $200 nights she realizes this can be profitable for her and a select few of her close friends. The word spreads from guy to guy, the price for the "babysitting service" goes up to $300. The girl who organized it all gets her 20% and soon business is in full swing.Of course there has to be a downside to all this, and that is the moral of the whole movie, teenage girls in high school can't get into the prostitution business without some competition and finally some breakdowns fueled by guilt.Overall it is well made and well acted. The daughter of veteran actor Sam Waterston is the lead girl, and the only one who bares her chest during the movie. Even though the story involved "underage" girls, in reality they were all in their 20s, and the Waterston girl was 26 during filming.
Chris Smith (RockPortReview)
"The Babysitters" could be classified as a Lifetime style movie mixed with a big handful of Cinemax sleaze, but is it ever fun to watch. It's quite the guilty pleasure, but also a disturbing view of seedy suburban life.First time writer/director David Ross creates a world where seemingly every man is a depraved, sex obsessed creep. One such man (the most "normal") is Michael played by John Leguizamo who is going through the proverbial mid-life crisis. Married with two young boys he begins and illicit affair with the babysitter, Shirley played by Katherine Waterston. She is a tall brunette who is smart, beautiful and has good business sense. When Michael tells his friends about Shirley's "services" they want her to babysit for them to. So she gets a few of her hot friends to help out and all of a sudden she is running a prostitution ring and getting a 20 percent cut.She tells us in the beginning that she is a regular girl from a non dysfunctional family and has never been abused or anything. She just likes the money and giving head isn't any more humiliating than flipping burgers. There is no morality in this film and the main characters realize this as Shirley mentions to Michael that they're both going to hell for this. The most outright uncomfortable and disturbing scenes take place in cabin when all the middle aged married guys get together with all the under age babysitter prostitutes. Everybody has taken ecstasy, and bad things start to happen. During a bathroom scene we shocked back to reality as to what these people are doing. This is really the only point where we see any consequences from this whole ordeal.So if you happen to find yourself bored one night, grab a few beers, a bag of chips, lock the door and watch "The Babysitters".
lastliberal
OK, there is something slightly sleazy about watching a movie featuring high school girls making money providing sex to dads.Michael (John Leguizamo) and his wife (Cynthia Nixon) are falling into routine, and she is not interested in his hobby. His job is becoming a bore. He and the babysitter (Katherine Waterston) fall into an illicit relationship.Soon, Shirly (Waterston) gets her friends into babysitting for $200 a pop and takes a cut.One of the girls (Louisa Krause) wants out and things go to hell.Waterston was really good, and I always enjoy Leguizamo in anything he does.
AD
