The Pacifier

A Navy Seal is sent to babysit five obnoxious kids while their mother goes to Switzerland. What could possibly go wrong?

Vin Diesel stars in his first (and to date, only) family comedy. After a rescue mission to save a government scientist ends with the scientist dead and Navy Seal Shane Wolfe (Diesel) in the hospital, Shane is sent to protect the scientist's family while their mother goes to Zurich, Switzerland, to retrieve a deposit box her husband had left there. Initially, the five kids, Alpha Bitch wannabe Zoe, rebel without a cause Seth, Girl Firefly Scout Lulu, toddler Peter, and baby Tyler, cannot stand their new guardian and do everything they can think off to get him out. In response, Shane treats the family to some military style discipline.

They get word that their mother cannot get the box until she can supply the correct password, so she ends up staying for a lot longer. As time goes on, Shane finds himself warming up to the kids, and the feelings are eventually reciprocated. In the end, Shane becomes a surrogate father to the kids, and, with their help, he saves their father's research from falling into enemy hands.

Though not critcally acclaimed, receiving a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, it performed exceptionally well at the box office, pulling in more than $115 million, more than twice its prodution cost. It's a reasonable, if somewhat derivative, family comedy. Most of the humor comes from Diesel performing the same tough guy he normally plays but applying it to domestic issues.

Tropes used in The Pacifier include:

• Action Hero Babysitter: Vin Diesel plays a Navy SEAL tasked with babysitting.
• Bald of Awesome: Shane.
• Bound and Gagged: Happens to the kids, before they quickly and silently Slip The Ropes.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Peter Panda dance. It's the means for surviving GHOST's very large array of traps.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Principal/PO3 Claire Fletcher, Garry the duck, and the neighbors.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Zoe's parallel parking.
• The Comically Serious
• Cultured Warrior: When Shane finds out Seth is sneaking out to rehearsals for The Sound of Music, he is impressed, even taking over as director when the first one quits. He even remarks that The Sound of Music is his favorite musical cause "A nun giving up the habit for a military guy" can't be all bad.
• Dawson Casting: In-movie - the actress cast as Liesl in The Sound of Music is obviously too old for the role.
• Dynamic Entry: Shane kicks Seths door down (worried about bad guys) not knowing Seth was in the bathroom across the hall.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: In the Time Compression Montage, one of the diaper changing scenes shows Tyler's genitals briefly.
  • It should be noted that infants get a pass on such issues as long as it's not focused on.
• Groin Attack: Garry the duck bites a terrorist there.
• I Know Karate: After being harrased by a rival troop of boys, Shane teaches the Fireflies to defend themselves. The next time the boys try something, the girls give tham a beatdown that ends with them tied to each other, bound and gagged.
• Improbable Parking Skills: Shane and Zoe have them.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja
• Lock and Load Montage: Parodied as Shane "suits up" with diapers, baby bottles, etc. as he gets ready to take the kids to school.
  • Also played straight in the opening scene.
• Mistaken for Subculture: Seth
• My Favorite Shirt: Shane's shirt gets mustard and bologna on it, prompting this phrase.
  • Also hilarious considering all of his shirts are the same!
• Never Trust a Trailer: The promotional trailer combines a scene of Shane preparing to drive the family minivan to school, answered by the younger daughter dramatically leaping out to kiss the ground after the van finally comes to a stop. The latter scene is actually in response to the older daughter's first driving lesson with the van, rather than Shane's Badass Driver skills.
• Not Safe for Kids: Zoe covers Tyler's eyes when the coach comes out in a nasty looking wrestling outfit.
• Parental Abandonment: Shane was raised by his father, who sent him off to military school so that he could keep being a soldier. He was then killed in action.
• Prejudiced for Pecs: Lulu is impressed by Shane's "boobs"
• Sadist Teacher
• Slipped the Ropes: Two of the kids do this, silently and impressively.
• Shout-Out: The kids' mother's name Julie Plummer is an explicit reference to The Sound of Music stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
• Suck E. Cheese's: Wooky Woodchuck's

Shane: And they say war is hell.

• Throw It In: The whole sequence with Lulu telling Shane she think he is cute was apparently an exact recreation of the first meeting between the young actress and Vin Diesel, including his bemused "Thanks?"
• Time Compression Montage: Shows Shane warming up to the family, Zoe's driving skills improving, Seth practicing for the play, Lulu and her scouts learing martial arts, and Shane learning how to change a diaper.
• Title Drop: Shane is describing his special ops wrestling grapples with one in particular (and his personal favorite) called "the Pacifier."
• Token Romance: Shane and Claire
• To the Pain: Shane describes the exact grapples he pulls on the wrestling coach as he is doing them.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Shown during the Wild Teen Party below. Zoey is yelling at her boyfriend for inviting a whole bunch of people that she didn't know to her house for a party. After Shane gets back and makes them clean up the mess they made (which includes baloney plastered to the ceiling with mustard), she's upset...because her boyfriend will never speak to her again. Shane, being a SEAL, has the sense to call her out on that.
• Wild Teen Party: While Shane is out with the scouts, Zoe throws a party. When he gets back, he has all the teens clean up their mess.