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‘The Sitter’: Yet another adventure in babysitting – Metro US

‘The Sitter’: Yet another adventure in babysitting

As was evidenced by the outtakes from “Superbad,” Jonah Hill is a funny guy. He’s great at improv and playing that obnoxious, grabby kid that you can’t help loving. The only explanation for his latest film not being that funny is director David Gordon Green, who restrained Hill for the sake of playing up the schmaltzy love-fest between his character and the seemingly awful kids he’s babysitting.

It’s a movie that begins with Hill’s character performing favors of a sexual nature for his friend-with-benefits, played by Ari Graynor. While opening with a raunchy sex scene might’ve worked well for “Bridesmaids,” here it’s kind of a letdown when the other shock value moments as are unoriginal as a car chase with drug lords and a kid who is obsessed with explosives.

The premise, the obstacles and the stock characters involved are a perfect xeroxed copy of every other movie about a person who is clueless about kids being forced to look after kids.

Add to that some bizarre racial and sexual orientation issues that come up randomly in the middle of the movie. It’s a clumsy handling of something that didn’t need to be in the movie in the first place.

These issues are important, but what the heck are they doing in the middle of our fluffy, cheesy, been-there-done-that comedy? If you don’t have time to deal with the issue appropriately, don’t deal with it at all.