Susan Granger’s review of “The Sitter” (20th Century-Fox)
In his last comedic role before losing lots of weight, Jonah Hill plays Noah Griffith, who is suspended from college and looking for something to do while spending time at home in New York. Being a nice guy, he agrees to help his divorced mother, Sandy (Jessica Hecht), go out for an evening with her neighbors – and perhaps meet a nice man – by taking a job minding his mother’s friend’s three children: sexually anxious/over-medicated 13 year-old Slater (Max Records) and his precociously celebrity-obsessed nine year-old sister Blithe (Landry Bender), along with their recently adopted 10 year-old Hispanic brother from Mexico, rage-filled Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), who exhibits extraordinarily destructive behavior.
Not only has Noah zero experience in disciplining children but he’s also completely clueless that his manipulative girlfriend, Marisa Lewis (Ari Graynor), is using him, not only sexually but also to obtain illegal substances. So he winds up piling the three kids into the family minivan to drive to a Brooklyn warehouse to pick up cocaine from a crazy drug-dealer, Karl, (Sam Rockwell), from whom Rodrigo steals $10,000 worth of the white powder and then spills it.
For years, Jonah Hill played virtually the same irresponsible, nerdy schlub in “Superbad,” “How To Train Your Dragon,” and “Get Him to the Greek,” among others. But after scoring critical acclaim as a serious character actor in “Moneyball” and “Cyrus,” Hill has now grown far above and beyond this recycled “Uncle Buck”/”Adventures in Babysitting” ridiculousness, formulaically written by first-time scribes Brian Greenwood and Alessandro Tanaka and awkwardly directed by David Gordon Green (“Pineapple Express,” “Your Highness”) with – yes – yet another exploding toilet sequence. Mercifully, it’s only 81 minutes long.
FYI: A promotional poster includes the so-called “personal” phone number of Jonah Hill: (917) 409-7838 – on which Hill has recorded an automatic message, speaking to the caller either in character or as himself.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Sitter” is a crass, ludicrous, disappointing 3. Despite its deceptively mainstream title, it’s R-rated raunchy and definitely NOT appropriate viewing for kids.
