Adventures In Babysitting

1 9 8 7 (USA)

Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) takes a baby-sitting job in the Chicago suburbs to look after two kids; the 15-year-old Brad (Keith Coogan) who has a crush on her, and Sara (Maia Brewton), a little brat who idolises comic book hero Thor.

The trouble starts when Chris gets a call from her best friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) who had decided to run away from home but has thought better of it upon reaching the bus station in downtown Chicago.

Chris heads into the city with Brad, his best friend Daryl (Anthony Rapp) and Sara in tow and, in short order, blows a tyre, realises she has left her purse back in the 'burbs, gets a tow from a one-armed man who drives by his house to find his wife cheating on him, sneaks into a car that is being hot-wired by car thief Joe Gipp (Calvin Levels) and ends up in the headquarters of a major car theft ring.

There's one good scene in this overworked teen comedy: Shue and her young charges singing Babysitting Blues in a Chicago nightclub. Otherwise, the various misadventures are uniformly anaemic and the only party not guilty of overacting is Levels, who gives a sweetly controlled performance in his bit as the young thief with a conscience.

The movie was released as Night On The Town in the UK.