'The Sitter' makes for a garden-variety bawdy comedy

Release: December 9th, 2011


Cast: Jonah Hill,  Max Records, Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez


Director: David Gordon Green


Run Time: 81 minutes     Rated: R

When babysitting, it's probably best not to bring the kids you're babysitting to go and buy some coke for your girlfriend, who promises to have sex with you that same night if you bring the nose candy.

Just don't tell that to Noah (Jonah Hill), who's at the center of director David Gordon Green's film The Sitter.

Noah is a lazy guy, who has been kicked out of college and is jobless. Considering he has all this time on his hands, Noah's asked by his mother to babysit the neighbor's kids.

The three kids that are left in his care are going to be the bane of Noah's existence. Not only does he have the pressure of babysitting three seemingly nightmare children, but his girlfriend is ready to go all the way.

Noah is  going to have crazy night ahead of him, with the question of will he survive the night full of cocaine, gangsters, and three kids in tow.

The Sitter is not a terrible film, just one with a number of issues that could have been fixed easily with more attention.

Being inconsistently funny, and very predictable are two of the major issues with The Sitter, and it seems to me one problem is the cause of the other.

In other words,  it doesn't help to see the joke coming from a mile away, because that takes all the punch out of the humor.

At least most of the time.

Even with the predictability of some of the jokes,  there are those that do still make you chuckle and laugh. Unfortunately those jokes that get out from under the blanket of predictability are far too spaced out through the entirety of the movie.

I did like Hill's character, even if that's been a consistent character through several of his films. The sweet, fast talking, loveable big guy who's quick with a joke has always worked for him.

The same act works for him in The Sitter but it's when he interacts with the kids that make him standout a little in this film when compared to his other comedies.

When helping out the kids, Hill takes on a bit of maturity that many of his roles lack. He may do a lot of the same things in other films, but the maturity is not something seen in many of his comedic roles.

Changing it up a little bit when it comes to Hill's performance is nice, but with that being the only unpredictable element of the entire film, The Sitter just feels like another average comedy about debauchery and hijinks of the R rated variety.

Grade: C

Check out the NSFW trailer: