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The Pacifier
Disney offered action star Vin Diesel a welcome change of pace with 2005's The Pacifier, a contrived and predictable action comedy awash in cliched plotting and a rampant predictability that really tries viewer patience.
Diesel plays Shane Wolfe, a Navy SEAL who is assigned to guard the five children of a recently murdered government scientist because the program he was working on is believed to still be in the house and the widow and mother of the kids has to leave the country for a few days to retrieve another part of the program.
This film really suffers from a serious lack of surprises in Robert Ben Grant and Thomas Lennon's screenplay. The fish out of water concept of a soldier turned suburban babysitter is a concept rife with possibilities, unfortunately, most of what Grant and Lennon come up with is pretty predictable. Of course, we get the initial defiance from the kids having to take orders from a soldier, but it just gets sillier, from Shane's first encounter with a dirty diaper, a scene we've seen in a million other movies, the tired comments about Shane's man boobs, to his having to do a stupid dance in order for one of the kids to sleep, but all credibility goes out the window when Shane agrees to take over as the director of the eldest son's production of The Sound of Music and it's pretty much checkout time for the viewer.
There were also certain issues with the premise that I couldn't wrap my head around. First of all, we are told that this murdered scientist was away from home for seven or eight months at a time, but somehow he found time to father five children? I also didn't buy the way the scientist died...he and Shane are standing alone on a beach and when Shane leaves the guy alone for a second, he kills the dad and wounds Shane. And why wouldn't the mother (Faith Ford) make it clear to her children how much danger they were in? I guess that was so the scene where the ninjas break into the house and the kids finally get it made a little more sense. I have to admit that I did enjoy the film's take on an action movie staple...the "suiting up" scene which involved pampers and juice boxes.
Adam Shankman, whose next directorial assignment would be the film version of Hairspray, provides lethargic direction, though he does display an affinity for action sequences. Diesel's straight-faced performance sucks all the humor out of the character. The only real laughs in the film are provided by Brad Garrett playing the school's smart-ass vice principal. A good idea on paper that definitely lost something in execution.
Disney offered action star Vin Diesel a welcome change of pace with 2005's The Pacifier, a contrived and predictable action comedy awash in cliched plotting and a rampant predictability that really tries viewer patience.
Diesel plays Shane Wolfe, a Navy SEAL who is assigned to guard the five children of a recently murdered government scientist because the program he was working on is believed to still be in the house and the widow and mother of the kids has to leave the country for a few days to retrieve another part of the program.
This film really suffers from a serious lack of surprises in Robert Ben Grant and Thomas Lennon's screenplay. The fish out of water concept of a soldier turned suburban babysitter is a concept rife with possibilities, unfortunately, most of what Grant and Lennon come up with is pretty predictable. Of course, we get the initial defiance from the kids having to take orders from a soldier, but it just gets sillier, from Shane's first encounter with a dirty diaper, a scene we've seen in a million other movies, the tired comments about Shane's man boobs, to his having to do a stupid dance in order for one of the kids to sleep, but all credibility goes out the window when Shane agrees to take over as the director of the eldest son's production of The Sound of Music and it's pretty much checkout time for the viewer.
There were also certain issues with the premise that I couldn't wrap my head around. First of all, we are told that this murdered scientist was away from home for seven or eight months at a time, but somehow he found time to father five children? I also didn't buy the way the scientist died...he and Shane are standing alone on a beach and when Shane leaves the guy alone for a second, he kills the dad and wounds Shane. And why wouldn't the mother (Faith Ford) make it clear to her children how much danger they were in? I guess that was so the scene where the ninjas break into the house and the kids finally get it made a little more sense. I have to admit that I did enjoy the film's take on an action movie staple...the "suiting up" scene which involved pampers and juice boxes.
Adam Shankman, whose next directorial assignment would be the film version of Hairspray, provides lethargic direction, though he does display an affinity for action sequences. Diesel's straight-faced performance sucks all the humor out of the character. The only real laughs in the film are provided by Brad Garrett playing the school's smart-ass vice principal. A good idea on paper that definitely lost something in execution.