The Sitter

In one hundred years from now when sociologists look back on the significant cultural phenomena of the early 21st century, they will surely find the popularity of the “comic” actor Jonah Hill truly baffling.

Certainly I do. Hill, who looks like he will inexplicably land himself an Oscar nomination this year for a rather bland performance in the vastly over-rated Moneyball, has always given me the heebie-jeebies. There is, as Ann Widdecombe would have it, something of the night about him.

Perhaps Hill recognises this himself because here is starring in a film where he plays a slightly creepy, definitely pathetic waster who has no business being left in charge of kids but finds himself looking after three of them anyway. Hill plays college drop-out Noah who spends his time watching television and chasing after his supposed girlfriend Marisa (Ari Gaynor), a woman so ridiculously far out of his league that their one-sided relationship could only ever exist in a film created by the frustrated men who churn out these lame Hollywood comedies. When his mother gets a shot at bagging herself a surgeon, Noah is drafted in to mind her friend’s three kids – sexually confused Slater (Max Records), over-sexualised tweenager Blithe (Landry Bender) and pyromaniac Mexican adoptee Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez). When Marisa calls Noah from a party demanding that he bring her some cocaine, he rather ridiculously takes his three charges on a journey into the night. As you might have guessed, things go awry.

There isn’t a single original thought behind this film. The story will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen Adventures in Babysitting or any of the many other babysitting-gone-wrong films that Hollywood has produced over the years. Perhaps director David Gordon Green and his scriptwriters thought they were onto a winner by marrying a tried and tested plot with the crude humour that has served them well enough in the past few years. It doesn’t work. And that’s the case from the very start with an opening scene that will surely rank as one of the most repulsive moments on screen this year. There’s nothing funny about The Sitter.

You can get away with mildly amusing when you’re aiming for a bland, inoffensive rom-com but you can’t do that when you go down the ribald route. It has to be funny and The Sitter barely raises a smile, let alone a laugh.

For Hill, the role is something of a departure – as well as being hideously crude, his character is supposed to have something of a heart – but it’s certainly not the star-maker that he needs at this stage in his career. Best to stick to playing creepy sidekicks for now.

Give it a miss.

Stars: *