After his surprisingly mature performance alongside Brad Pitt in Moneyball, I had begun to renew my faith in Jonah Hill, as I had grown weary of his trademark style of sarcastic and pessimistic humor. Needless to say, when I first saw the trailer for The Sitter, I feared that he was simply reverting to the type of character that I have long felt had run its course. I do have to admit there was a certain amount of novelty in seeing Hill try and portray a babysitter, and director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express and Your Highness) has had success in adapting nontraditional comedies. It has been a while since a true black comedy has hit theaters, and slapping three unconventional children with a perpetual slacker of Jonah Hill’s caliber in a quest involving drug dealers seemed like the perfect remedy. Early critical praise was blatantly absent, but perhaps enough raunchy shock value would be present in order to provide some cheap and simple laughs, thereby making The Sitter bearable.
The film does have a few laugh-inducing moments, but for the most part, I would characterize The Sitter as more amusing than outright funny. Hill’s formulaic scumbag persona returns with a vengeance, but thankfully he does eventually achieve some redemption in the form of a few endearing moments with his younger co-stars. In fact, the children end up being the strongest part of The Sitter, with each youngster conveying a distinctly wild and humorous personality that disappointingly doesn’t get enough attention in the narrative. And, in all honesty, the narrative doesn’t have any room to make those kinds of mistakes, with the many wildly implausible situations already being significantly weakened by one-dimensional and irredeemable characters. In the end, there is enough humor to please the intended demographic, but the poor execution of a risky premise simply relegates The Sitter to the kind of comedy that is best watched via Netflix or premium cable.
Overall Recommendation: Low
