A Night on the Town With... "The Sitter"

Would you want this man to watch your kids?


The story:

Noah, a college-aged slacker is sitting at home while his divorced mom is set to go on a date.  Unfortunately, plans go awry and she will be forced to cancel her plans at happiness unless she could find someone willing to babysit some children.  Cue the son feeling bad, and opting to do it, even though he's a guy, and guys don't do that.  The kids are dysfunctional, at best, but hey, so's the sitter.  Naturally, Noah gets a booty-call from his girlfriend asking him to come to a party, and don't forget to bring the coke...

So, what would you do?


Naturally, Noah is taking these little hellions with him on the ride and night of their lives.  There will be explosions, gunshots, and an odd assortment of characters, most notably Sam Rockwell as the world's nicest drug dealer, that fill out the movie.

Noah, of course, is played by Jonah Hill.  Jonah is not your typical Hollywood leading man, and all the more awesome that he's making it work.  If he doesn't write his own material, he has the same routine that he's done for most of his slacker-roles in movies, and it works, and I laugh everytime.  They guy is funny.

Here's my problem with the movie...

They started off so crudely to make sure YOU KNOW THIS FILM IS RATED R!!!!

This could have been this generations' "Adventures in Babysitting".  A cult-classic that kids "that age" went to see, and had a blast with it.  There is a lot of humor and heart in this movie that could have easily been tailored to fit a PG-13 set-up, which really, that's what this film could have been.

It could have been huge for families to see and laugh along with.

Instead, they went the easy route, made it an R-rated raunchfest, and much of the soul of the movie gets lost in the translation.

It was nice to see the kids connect with the sitter as the night went on, and the movie would have worked so much better if they had just decided to tone it down a bit and let the message come through.

Amusing film... disappointed because it could have been much bigger/better in the overall scheme of things.

Worth a look, but otherwise, just a 3 out of 5.