There’s such a thing as beginner’s luck, and I’m starting to think that David Gordon Green has it. The director made his name with the well-regarded dramas “George Washington” and “All the Real Girls.” He then transitioned to comedy with 2008’s “Pineapple Express.” That uproarious film is one of the best of the recent spate of R-rated comedies. His follow-ups were not nearly so funny. In fact, in a single year, the director has released two of the worst of the genre: “Your Highness” and, now, “The Sitter.”
“The Sitter” runs under an hour and a half, but sitting in a dark theater, forced to watch it, you feel that hours of your life are slipping by. The script, by first-time feature writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, just isn’t engaging enough — which is odd to say about a story that includes the high jinks of one of the screen’s strangest drug dealers, as well as those of a promising, budding young terrorist.
| On screen |
| ‘The Sitter’ |
| 1.5 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Jonah Hill, Ari Graynor, Sam Rockwell |
| Director: David Gordon Green |
| Rated: R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and some violence |
| Running time: 81 minutes |
“The Sitter” does start with a bang — it’s starting to become a tradition of the genre to try to shock the audience within the first few seconds. Poor Noah (Jonah Hill) is being used by a hot blonde (Ari Graynor) and is strangely too clueless to see it. Perhaps it’s that his big heart, won’t allow him to see anything but the best in people. As his mom readies herself for a date, he tells her, “Don’t give it up too easily.” But he really wants to see his mom find happiness. That’s why he agrees to baby-sit for her friends when their scheduled sitter cancels.
He’s never looked after children before — let alone a trio that includes a boy on a cocktail of meds, a pre-adolescent girl who thinks she’s Paris Hilton (“The Bible’s a hot book”), and a recently adopted kid from El Salvador who’s “going through some transitions” that include placing bombs in public toilets. That would be bad enough. But then the babe calls, promising sex if he picks up some coke from her dealer and brings it to the party she’s at. You can imagine what happens: A raunchier, more dangerous “Adventures in Babysitting.”
Hill is certainly an expert at playing the sweet schlub, but it’s still not clear whether that repeated performance is enough to carry a movie. He gets a little help, notably from Sam Rockwell, who plays the lonely dealer out to kill him, and even one of the kids: This is Landry Bender’s first feature film, but the girl is pitch-perfect as a budding “celebutante.” J.B. Smoove, who plays Larry’s riotous sidekick Leon on TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” also offers some laughs, this time as the buddy of the dealer.
But those laughs are few and far between. After the waste of talent in “Your Highness” earlier this year, and now this disaster, David Gordon Green just might want to try his hand at another drama — if Hollywood is still willing to let him direct.
