The Sitter [DVD]

Whilst the opening 15 minutes are enough to convince you that you MAY be moving into different territory than all of the other "babysitter"-type movies, it soon descends into total predictability with far too many coincidences to engage the viewer.
I was also a little concerned about the use of such young characters in the midst of such explicit language!! Having thought the same when I watched Kick Ass, I assume that this is just the direction that movies are going in nowadays!! Sad, really.
Whilst the majority of characters are engaging enough, and it does have one or two funny moments, it is just not enough to sustain a 90-minute movie and you feel yourself wishing it would come to an end with about 30 minutes left.
Ok if you are a Jonah Hill fan. If not, a poor-average attempt.

The Sitter features Jonah Hill (Get Him to the Greek) as the hapless Noah Griffiths, a guy who has bumbled along in life for it's entirety thus far. In order to allow his long-suffering mum (mom) a night out he agrees to babysit her friends children, the neurotic & nootropically-dosed Slater, the pyromaniacal, Puerto-Rican adoptee Rodrigo & the celebrity-culture obsessed girl Blythe. Unfortunately, the only thing Noah really wants to do is see his abusive girlfriend at a party so he takes the kids along on his pre-party errands and then to a Brooklyn house-party, naturally. But will Noah ever get things to align so easily?

Firstly, spoilers probably follow. If you want to see this film, then stop reading but be warned, it's awful.

This film is one of those where you saw all the best bits in the trailer, the cover isn't even from an actual scene in the movie and all of the promotional posters & ad-banners seem to imply that Hill is some kind of serial babysitter with issues. He isn't. He is doing this favour one-time, so please don't be misled.

The brilliant Sam Rockwell (Moon) plays a hyperbolic coke-dealer, Karl, who has some serious trust issues and is surrounded by heavily-muscled & scantily-clad men the entire time. Also, the coke is sold in dinosaur eggs. Noah gets himself in a jam with the dealer who then plays the bad-guy character chasing them around town the entire time. It's cliché but the film doesn't work without this hackneyed plot-mechanism. Otherwise Noah would be able to complete his errands with ease and that would make for an even-more boring film.

The plot is so confused it feels like it was written by one of the starring children, threads are opened and left unaddressed. A lot of scenes happen purely for the sake of filler and play no part in the story whatsoever (the restaurant, the fund-raiser, the party) with only a passing mention later on. This padding is extremely noticeable when the entire duration is only 81 minutes including the credits...

Later, Noah spends 30 seconds with a gang in a bar and then they follow him to protect him (unbeknownst to Noah) and are willing to commit homicide for him, despite meeting him all of 3 minutes earlier. Noah's attempt at giving some sort of moral guidance to the kids is truly cringe-worthy. The only time I actually laughed was the scene with the cops and that's about 30 seconds in duration.

Extra content: An unrated cut of the film (it's 6 minutes longer, still shy of 90 minutes including credits!!) Deleted & Extended scenes, 3 featurettes "For Your Consideration with Blythe", "The Making of The Sitter", "Jonah the Producer", the usual gag reel, and a digital copy of the film.

All in all, if you are a die-hard Jonah Hill fan then worth a watch, otherwise I can't honestly recommend spending your money on this dross.

As The Sitter begins, we see Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill) in the lap of luxury, literally, by going down on Maris (Ari Graynor), and after being given plenty of praise, he's disappointed to learn that she won't return the favour.

The bad luck continues when he gets home to find that in order to still allow his mum to go out for the evening, he has to replace a babysitter who's just cancelled for the Pedulla family. Cue a close-up on the breasts of Mrs Pedulla (Erin Daniels), as he goes in for a hug.

The first child he meets is Slater (Max Records), who says with conviction that, at 13, he can't babysit his siblings because his doctor confirms he has severe anxiety issues and cannot handle responsibility. He's then introduced to Blithe (Landry Bender), who wears far too much make-up and then sprays perfume in his mouth, and Rodrigo (Landry Bender), who the Pedullas recently adopted from El Salvador and who is a closet arsonist.

All of the kids need locking up, but just as he starts his babysitting shift, Maris calls and says she wants him to come to a fantastic party where, if he does, she'll promise him sex. Meanwhile, due to being arrested a while back for driving under the influence, the Pedullas ban him from driving their car. Still, there's only one way for him to get there and that'll mean he has to take the kids on what he calls, "a field trip".

Along the way he inadvertently causes a security alert in a clothes store, gets accused of being a paedophile, he loses Rodrigo, he attracts the wrath of a drug dealer,

There's a lot of very clever writing, whether it's amongst the madcap situations that take place, or even with Noah's heartfelt moments with the kids, that make it probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a John Hughes/John Candy film without either of them being around. I know that's a bold statement to make, and I didn't think I'd be saying it myself, but at times it does feel like the new Uncle Buck. It's also good to see that despite being centred around children, it doesn't hold back on the strong language.

Presented in the original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio and in 1080p high definition, the quality of the print is superb throughout with bold colours and no defects on the print.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.

Audio-wise, the film is presented in DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio and there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary as it's not a special FX film, but it does the necessary without any issues.

The extras are as follows, and while it looks like there's a lot, only a couple of them have any substance:

Deleted/Alternate/Extended Scenes (25:54): Ten of them here, and some of the extended ones play the film-based content for so long that
whatever's extended in it just disappears into it and there's not much that's great to watch.

Out of the clips included, I'd keep the first one and that's all. Later on, I'm sure that the deleted scene "Kids on the curb" is actually included in the film.

Gag reel (2:37): The cast corpse during filming.

Sits-n-giggles (3:03): The cast ad lib a lot.

For your consideration (1:01): Just a lot of noise from Landry Bender (Blythe). Quite pointless.

The Making of The Sitter (15:23): Chat from key cast and crew, with on-set filming.

Jonah the producer (4:59): He's one of the executive producers on the film, although that title could actually mean anything.

Theatrical trailer (2:11): Presented in 1.85:1. You can see it here:

The menu features clips of the film set against the movie's theme. There are subtitles in English and more additional languages than I can count, or even work out as each one is stated in their original language and I don't have an actual box that lists them all in English. My Blu-ray player tells me there are 31 selections!

Thankfully, 20th Century Fox are one of the few distributors still putting a decent number of chapters into their Blu-rays and DVDs. This one has 24 over the 87-minute running time.

Sadly, there are trailers shobed *before* the main menu, like the old days of rental video, and as such, I will not be listing them here. They should be in the extras menu.

Film: 9
Picture: 10
Sound: 7
Extras: 4