Blu-ray Review: The Sitter (2011)

With all the terrible comedies that come out on a monthly basis from different “funnymen,” it’s hard to distinguish one from the other. Adam Sandler’s movies get progressively poorer in quality (which is saying something, when you consider he started out with Billy Madison), and the world simply shrugs its shoulders when a trailer for the new Seth Rogan flick pops up in theaters. As such, we have been trained to abhor and be wary of these movies. Likewise, America (and probably the rest of the world) has a tendency to shudder when they hear that portly Jonah Hill is starring in another comedy.

So, when they actually make a movie that is something halfway amusing, you have to stop and wonder what went wrong in the making of their film — or if you’ve become just as dulled-down in the wits department like the uncouth youngsters these moving pictures are aimed at. Maybe it was the Vicodin, the scotch, or a combination of the two, but I actually — for some unexplainable reason — enjoyed The Sitter. And that’s damn funny coming from me — especially since just about every other critic out there has hated the film.

Straight from the opening scene of the film, you get the feeling the movie hates you. We begin with Jonah Hill performing cunnilingus on a slender, mostly attractive young woman (yes, that’s really how it starts). As it turns out, however, Noah (Hill) is just being used by the girl: she’s in it for her and her alone. So, after being rejected for what is possibly the eighteenth-hundred time by a member of any sex, Noah retreats to his home, only to receive an offer from his loving mother to babysit her friend’s three unruly heathens — a proposal he accepts because he loves his mum (awww!) and wants her to be happy.

But his night with the Trio of the Damned — Blithe (Landry Bender), a 10-year-old with a make-up fetish and who has seen way too much Reality TV; Slater (Max Records), a nervous wreck of a young teen who hasn’t found his way out of the closet yet; and Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), the immigrant foster terror with a knack for cherry bombs — is not going to make him happy. Aside from the fact that the kids are next-to-impossible to deal with (the result of proud parenting, no doubt), his “girlfriend” from the beginning of the movie is finally willing to “let him in” — providing he can score some cocaine, that is.

Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

Visit Luigi Bastardo's author page — Luigi Bastardo's Blog