Trailer Hitch: ‘The Sitter’ Is Gonna R-Rate Your ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ Memories

Tim Grierson
·Editor

While other solemn and self-important dramas compete for Oscar attention this December, "The Sitter" will be swearing and making sex jokes. The comedy from director David Gordon Green ("Pineapple Express," "Your Highness") casts Jonah Hill as a lazy schlub who has to babysit some kids on one eventful, action-packed night. If you're worn out from a summer of generally mediocre R-rated comedies, this trailer will probably feel like more of the same. A lot more.

Trailer category: Wacky-antics comedy.
Major selling points: Jonah Hill being Jonah Hill. Cleavage. Stuff blowing up.
What successful movies are they trying to remind us of? "Adventures in Babysitting." "Bad Teacher." "Bad Santa."
"Hey, (s)he's in this?" Sam Rockwell. J.B. Smoove from "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Method Man!
Line of dialogue that's really what the whole movie is about: Actually, it's a title card: "Would you trust this guy with your kids." Apparently, this movie is so risque they don't bother putting question marks at the end of sentences.
Spoilage? Medium. We learn that Jonah's slacker character takes the kids he's forced to babysit out into the city to meet up with his girlfriend (Ari Graynor) at a party and have sex. But then they run into drug dealers, which is what every suburban parent assumes happens when you go into the city.
Enticement Percentage Increase: 20 percent. Last week, Fox released a red-band trailer that emphasized the movie's sexual explicitness and vulgarity, and while the new safe-for-all-audiences trailer is less overt you get the general sense of the tone. Green is clearly taking the plot of the 1987 film "Adventures in Babysitting" and just making it more raunchy. This seems to be the template for a lot of comedies now: Grab a familiar storyline and add sex ("The Change-Up," "Your Highness," "Bad Teacher"). This could be funny, but the fatigue level at this point is pretty high. Then again, "The Sitter" comes out in December. By then, we might be happy to have something that's not a three-hour movie about a depressing subject.