I must confess that the trailers didn’t do a whole lot for me on this one. I ended up liking it a bit more than I expected to, but that doesn’t change the fact that it ended up being basically what I expected: a hard R-rated version of Adventures In Babysitting. It’s certainly not as good as Adventures In Babysitting, but it gets a good amount of the character work right and holds together well enough to work. Certainly not one of the best movies of the year, but OK.

Writing: Like I said, the writing does a good enough job at fleshing out the characters. The one thing that works better than I expected based on the trailers is Jonah Hill’s main character and his genuine fondness for his mother. Generally speaking, his role was a much nicer dude than I was expecting, which was probably the key thing that made me like the movie more than I thought I would. The kids are a bit too stereotyped, but they fill the required role adequately.

Production: Solid but unremarkable is how I would describe the production. There’s nothing memorable about it, but that is neither a good or a bad thing. At least there was nothing memorably bad about it.

Cast: Jonah Hill does a nice job with the generally likable slacker role. The kids are not particularly great in their roles, but they make them work well enough. The great Sam Rockwell does get to have fun chewing the scenery as the way-over-the-top bad guy. The also-great Ari Graynor is squandered as the undesirable girlfriend character.

Music: I was completely unfamiliar with composers Jeff McIlwain and David Wingo before seeing this movie. And, quite frankly, I can not say that I recall much about the score for the movie. But, I suppose if it does not stand out in my memory, at least it was not bad. Must have worked well enough.