What happened to David Gordon Green? His career as a director got off to a strong start with George Washington and All the Real Girls. He continued his streak of small town dramas with Undertow and Snow Angels, before making a leap into the mainstream with the stoner action-comedy Pineapple Express. Green not only showed talent for riveting indie flicks, but also a flair for zany and raunchy comedy. At least, he did with Pineapple Express. Unfortunately, the well seems to have run dry as evidenced by Green's latest R-rated comedies. Your Highness was a critical and commercial flop that just barely made half of its meager $50 million budget. Green closed the year on another sour note with The Sitter, which will likely only be remembered as the last appearance of the overweight Jonah Hill.
Hill plays Noah Griffin, a college student on suspension. He's content to lay on the couch at his mom's house with no intentions of getting a job or any serious plans for the future. He decides to actually do something nice for his mom (Jessica Hecht) and babysit a trio of kids so she can enjoy a night out. Noah is put in charge of Slater (Max Records), a nervous bundle of neuroses; Blithe (Landry Bender), a wannabe celebutante wearing heavy make-up and a tutu; and their adopted sibling from El Salvador, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), who enjoys blowing things up with fireworks.
Noah has a pseudo-girlfriend in Marisa (Ari Graynor), who asks him to bring her some cocaine for a party in exchange for sex. Thinking with his cock, Noah sets out into the seedier boroughs of New York City with the children in tow. Noah buys the coke from Marisa's dealer, Karl (Sam Rockwell), a bipolar eccentric who employs scantily clad bodybuilders in his drug lab. Karl also transports his narcotics inside dinosaur eggs, one of which is stolen by Rodrigo. Trying to get laid is the least of Noah's problems now that he has gangsters out to kill him.
Much like Pineapple Express, The Sitter features a mixture of raunchy, lowbrow humor along with mild action and chase sequences. Gordon doesn't handle the latter well as he fails to imbue these scenes with the same energy he did with Pineapple Express. Not all the blame falls on the director's shoulders. The majority of the film's faults lie with the script by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, who are also penning the upcoming remake of Baywatch, which will surely top year-end worst lists should it ever be released.
Gatewood and Tanaka practically plagiarize a bunch of 80's comedies with the spine of the story lifted from Adventures in Babysitting, plus a dash of Uncle Buck with Hill filling the role of a modern day John Candy. There's even a William Zabka-type in Marisa's ex-boyfriend, a blonde kickboxer with the oh-so-80's name of Ricky Fontaine (Jack Krizmanich). The rest of the movie's humor relies solely on broad stereotypes, like jive talking African-Americans who don't like white people and a flaming gay guy on roller skates.
The Sitter is a poorly conceived pastiche of derivative ideas and unfunny gags. Hill is called upon to simply reprise his Superbad persona and after his understated performance in Moneyball, it's disappointing.
Rating: * (*****)
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