Despite ancient sight gags and a cliched double-trouble plot line, TWIN SITTERS is a genial ribtickler that's suitable for the whole family--provided they've been weaned on Three Stooges shorts.
Trucking business tycoon Frank Hillhurst (Jared Martin) is poised to testify against his former partner, a mobster named Strohm (George Lazenby), who's been involved in toxic dumping. Impressed with the way weightlifting twins Peter and David Falcone (Peter and David Paul) handle themselves when
gunmen open fire in a park, Frank requests that the beefy twins watchdog his twin nephews Steven and Bradley (Joseph and Christian Cousins) at his mansion while he spills his guts to the feds.
Tired of waiting tables and pressed for the cash to launch their own eatery, Peter and David quickly accept. The assignment of shepherding the two young lookalikes forces the adult twins to reign in their bratty charges. Even with a duplicitous butler, Thomas (Barry Dennen), seeking to betray them
to Strohm, Peter and David initially manage to guard the boys and turn them into slick kids fond of flashy duds and monster trucks.
Before Frank signs off on his testimony, a phalanx of Strohm's men fan out over the Hillhurst property and kidnap the youngsters. Squeezing the hideout location out of Thomas, the muscleheaded baby-sitters invade the criminals shipboard rendezvous point in time to prevent Frank from giving in to
Strohm; the Falcones eventually defeat all of the gangster s hired guns with the aid of a group of other muscled twins. A coda reveals that the retired sitters have opened a successful restaurant thanks to the Butler's pay-off loot which they confiscated from Strohm.
At times resembling braindead Prince Valiants, Peter and David Paul (nicknamed "the Barbarian Brothers" when they were professional wrestlers) bring some of the madcap lunancy of a rigged wrestling event to the movies in this pleasing vehicle. Admittedly, the rampant insult humor isn't fresh, the
slapstick comeuppance directed at the priggish twin boys is as old as the "Mr. Belvedere" movie series, and the Paul Brothers themselves sometimes seem to be speaking with a mouthful of weight-gain supplements. However, the film still raises heck with zany aplomb.
Written and directed by John Paragon, an alumnus of the "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" TV series, this helter-skelter comedy has a bit of that cult show's outrageousness. In the end, this showcase for two large-dimensioned stars is smart enough to stay within its comic perimeters. It's a case where bigger
really is better.(Violence, profanity.) leave a comment