Film Reviews

The Pacifier

• Rating:
• Director: Adam Shankman
• Starring: Brittany Snow
• Details: US / 95 mins (PG).

Disgraced when a scientist is killed on his watch, Navy SEAL Lt. Shane Wolfe (Diesel) is handed a somewhat less demanding assignment - to watch over some kids (Ford, Snow, Thieriot and their infant siblings) while their mother travels to Switzerland on secret service business. A piece of cake? Not quite. Rough 'n' tough Wolfe has to get in touch with his feelings, which may well prove the most arduous mission he's ever had. It's a little early in his career for Vin Diesel to start playing against type - it took Arnold at least 20 years of seeing off bad guys before he took on Kindergarten Cop - and The Pacifier is something of an ill-advised move. Diesel lacks the deft comic touch required to riff off the kids on screen, and his tough-guy persona isn't yet so established that scenes of him opening up a more tender personality can be considered automatically funny. It's pretty undemanding fare suitable for anyone looking for a family-friendly movie to kill a few hours, but then - killjoy alert - the story is so riddled with unforgivably blatant continuity errors that it looks like the makers had no higher ambitions in mind.

Review by Declan Burke