Adventures in Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting

Possibly, when they write the history of 1980s cinema, they will wonder why Chicago became the capital of teen movies. In those days golden sands were graced by teenage beach parties that took place in California or sometimes New York, or on some cutesy back-lot version of Middle America; nobody ever lived in Chicago, certainly not teenagers.

But now you could make a list of 25 major films about teenagers from Chicago or its suburbs, from “The Breakfast Club” to the “Damien: Omen II,” from “Risky Business” to “Sixteen Candles,” from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to “Lucas.” And here comes “Adventures in Babysitting,” which combines two central ideas from two recent movies: The teenage hero goes on a tour of the city (from Ferris), and is in danger of getting into a lot of trouble unless she can get back home before the grown-ups (from “Risky Business”).

She is played by Elisabeth Shue in this movie, who was last seen as Ralph Macchio’s girlfriend in “The Karate Kid.” This time she’s a baby sitter who has been entrusted with a small girl and ends up also sitting for two teenage boys only three years younger than she is. Their parents leave for a party downtown. Shue gets a call from her best girlfriend, who has decided to run away from home and got as far as the bus station before losing her nerve. Now she is desperate. She’s broke and scared and wants Shue to come down and rescue her.

Well what else can you do? So Shue packs her three charges into the car and heads into town, whereupon she gets a flat tire, is given a lift by an insane tow-truck driver, becomes involved in various adventures such as having her car stolen by gangsters who work in an auto chop shop, being locked in an office by mobsters, climbing along a girder to escape, and winding up on-stage in a South Side blues club. You know the kind of thing.

“Adventures in Babysitting,” however mixes its reality levels. Sometimes it’s a very real movie about characters we care about; sometimes it’s just kidding around and giving us action for the sake of action. That’s not bad, but occasionally it leads to scenes that are handled for laughs when they should have been treated more seriously.

For example: A lot of the adventures these white kids have are with blacks on Chicago’s South Side. I liked that idea (Ferris Bueller seemed to be following the route of the Culture Bus at times). But then the movie seemed afraid to allow its black characters some freedom to act as they might in real life; they were basically backdrops.

Sometimes effective and funny backdrops especially in the movie’s best scene, when Shue and her three charges stumble onto a nightclub stage. The bluesman calls out, “Nobody leaves here without singing the blues.” Shue protests, “But I’m only a baby-sitter,” and the band responds with a classic blues chord.

Some other scenes are insipid and absurd like when Shue sneaks into the party of the parents who have hired her and tries to get by without being seen. The whole sequence shows a lack of imagination.

By the time it was over, I had gotten a few laughs and had a couple of moderately interesting times, but that was about it.

“Adventures in Babysitting” feels littered with missed opportunities. It’s got some good pieces, but they never really add up to something I can care much about.

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