Review No.3: The Sitter

So after two fairly heavy dramas I thought I'd relax with a lightweight comedy starring the anything but lightweight Jonah Hill as Noah a layabout who agrees to babysit three kids with hilarious consequences. Obviously the babysitting comedy has been done to death from Kindergarten Cop to The Pacifier to Are We There Yet? but this time there doesn't seem to be anything particularly in it for Noah apart from letting his mother have a night out. That might make Noah sound more decent than he actually is but there aren't really any decent adult characters here as he basically decides to take these kids to a drug dealer to by some cocaine for his psycho would-be girlfriend so she'd have sex with him. Along the way he gets accused of being a paedophile, steals thousands of pounds from a teenage girl and steals his dad's car apparent revenge for years of neglect. We are meant to feel sorry for Noah as he's treated badly by his dad and the girlfriend but really Noah doesn't know how to behave like a normal person and why his sweet former college classmate Roxanne constantly pursues him is anyone's guess. The kids are fairly stereotypical there's the neurotic Slater, the wannabe celebrity Blithe and the frankly weird Latino adopted sibling Rodrigo.

All these stereotypes, racism and homophobia would be fine if The Sitter were funny but I found it hard to stifle more than a titter but if you find waiters slipping over urine funny then you're in for a treat. Obviously life lessons are learnt along the way but they are so obvious from the get-go that there are really no surprises to be had here. I'm honestly not sure why Jonah Hill did this after being my favourite thing about Moneyball he seems to have taken a step backwards playing the same goofy loser he did in Superbad. Sam Rockwell is the only other name here but his crazy drug-dealer character has been seen in dozens have films and has been done much better in what is generally a waste of Rockwell's talents. If I were to pick the best actor it would have to be Max Records, best known for Where the Wild Things Are, as older brother Slater he actually manages to create a realistic character from the mess of a script and you do care more about him than the rest of the bunch. David Gordon Green's career also seems to be on a downward trajectory and I thought Your Highness was bad but this is even worse maybe he should just stick to making the sublime Eastbound and Down and forget about films for a while if The Sitter is anything to go by.

Verdict: An unfunny and offensive comedy only saved by a couple of good performances so I will give it 2 out of 10 and that's being generous.