Jonah Hill plays babysitter Noah Griffith in David Gordon Green’s
racy comedy, The Sitter. Noah’s way with the little ones makes the cast
of The Hangover look like responsible caregivers, which is pretty much
the point of this 81-minute ride.
Starring: Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell and Ari Graynor
Rating: Three stars out of five
Adventures
in babysitting aren’t what they used to be. Chris Columbus’ first
feature in 1987 starred a young Elisabeth Shue and had a PG rating for
its tale of three kids and their teenaged minder on the lam in
after-dark Chicago.
Cut to New York, 25 years later. Jonah Hill is
twice the babysitter Shue ever was — maybe more in this, his final
pre-svelte role. He plays Noah Griffith, a shiftless layabout whose
girlfriend (Ari Graynor) has him supply her with pleasure and drugs.
(This is an R-rated film that earns its R rating faster than you can say
“R rating.”)
When the neighbour’s sitter comes down with a
urinary tract infection — do we need that level of detail? — Noah
offers to fill in, though he makes it clear to his charges that he won’t
be reading any bedtime stories. In fact, when his girlfriend calls with
a naughty request, he decides to pack them in their parents’ minivan
and run a few errands. What could go wrong?
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The kids, for a start.
Slater, played by Max Records (Where the Wild Things Are) and looking
like a lost Culkin clone, is a 13-year-old bundle of anxiety, reliant on
pills to keep him this side of a nervous breakdown. Blithe (Landry
Bender) is seven and wants to be the next Paris Hilton, preferably by
morning. Then there’s Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), the adopted Salvadoran
firebug/kleptomaniac/public urinator. Every family has at least one.
Noah’s
way with the little ones makes the cast of The Hangover look like
responsible caregivers, which is pretty much the point of this 81-minute
ride. Put two choices in front of this guy and he’ll come up with a
third that’s worse. Before the night is over, he’ll have taken part in a
drug theft, a diamond heist, a bat mitzvah embezzlement, grand theft
auto, and extreme jive talkin’, which remains a felony in parts of the
five boroughs.
The Sitter is the latest racy comedy from David
Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Your Highness), who used to be a
serious young filmmaker and is still two of those things. It’s not
exactly sloppy, but it feels a touch too easy. Take Noah’s run-in with
the cops, who turn out to be less responsible versions of the officers
played by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader in Superbad.
He also keeps
running into the same minor characters. The best of these is Sam
Rockwell as Karl, a dippy drug dealer who immediately names the sitter
his new eighth best friend. Karl’s second-in-command is Julio, played by
J.B. Smoove, whom you can also see as a chatty realtor in Cameron
Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo.
As gross-out comedies go, The Sitter is
actually fairly tame, and occasionally even slows down enough to let the
sitter have a heart-to-heart with one of the sittees. One such moment
turns out to be oddly homophobic and anti-homophobic at the same time.
Maybe that makes it gay-neutral?
Audiences may leave the film with
a similar ambivalence. Part of me continues to rail against Green,
director of such small-scale gems as 2000’s George Washington and 2003’s
All the Real Girls, abandoning indie cred for forgettable comedies.
Then again, it’s hard to work for babysitting money when the real cash
beckons.
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