Big Screen Peter: The Sitter

Several years ago, a camera company ran a commercial that featured Andre Agassi hammering tennis balls at a clean white wall. The balls were dipped in paint and splattered color across the white canvas with each hit. It was clever and, in its way, somewhat aesthetic. But there was no symmetry, no method behind the splattering of tennis balls against the wall.  It was chaos manifested in an explosion of color.

Watching “The Sitter,” starring Jonah Hill, is that chaos.

From start to finish, there is no coherency. The only thread holding the movie together is the mere fact the same people keep popping up throughout the movie. There is no relationship. No buildup. Just independently structured shots that try their best to be funny.  A feat that is achieved four times.

The movie is set up as a sort of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” meets the “Baby-Sitter’s Club” by way of “Role Models.” Got all that?

Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill) is a down on his luck college kid who just happens to be suspended. Needing work and not wanting to disappoint his mother, he takes a one-off gig watching the children of a family friend. The problems with the film start here. The character is never defined. Instead, the director David Gordon Green throws worn cliches at Noah, blindly hoping the amalgamation of oddities creates something believable for the audience. It doesn’t work.

The character ends up being no one amongst a litany of glimpses. His naïve detachment is pierced by the raving lunacy that are his charges for the evening. Each of them encompasses an attempt at humor that falls flat.

There’s Rodrigo, the deranged Hispanic adoptee with a penchant for explosives and poor English language skills. He’s flanked by the two biological children, Slater and Blithe. While the former is an overmedicated and frazzled teenaged manifestation of our fractured meta-culture, the latter is an explosion of everything that is wrong with popular culture. And, by way of satire, it’s this female caricature that comes closest to striking notes of real humor.

What sets up as a long night babysitting a few odd children, quickly veers into the absurd as Noah begins a quest to score some coke for his girlfriend. Hollywood has taught us time and again that nothing is ever that simple. And when things start to go wrong, there is still a modicum of hope for “The Sitter.”

Throughout the hijinks that ensue, there is nothing honest that occurs. It’s a revery of emptiness. Emotion is hinted at by way of slow montages overdubbed with a smooth r&b beats. These facial close ups and cut outs do nothing for the movie. They’re empty distractions that could be glossed over if there weren’t so many other attempts to find genuine emotional resonance.

But Gordon Green gives each child a special, one-on-one moment with Noah. With a few empty words Noah magically fixes all that ails the misunderstood child, whether it’s a predilection for cherry bombs or a sexual identity crisis. For a movie overflowing with worn cliches, that schlock is unbearable. And certainly can’t temper the rampage of bigoted characterizations and over the top antics that litter the movie.

• The Sitter is playing at the Carmike 14 and the Malco Cinema 16 in Fort Smith, and the Malco Van Buren Cinema. Link here for time and ticket info.

The Sitter is for fans of Pineapple Express, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Harold & Kumar. And even then, I suggest heavy levels of doping.

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