Film

You may have marvelled at ‘George Washington’, swooned at ‘All the Real Girls’, guffawed at ‘Pineapple Express’ and chuckled guiltily at ‘Your Highness’, but only the most ardent of David Gordon Green apologists will find much to love in ‘The Sitter’. This is the moment where the once-promising American filmmaker finally ditches any pretence at being an indie outsider and clamps his lips firmly around the Hollywood teat.

Jonah Hill (also slumming it) plays Noah, a still-at-home mummy’s boy who takes a job as a babysitter to three eccentric, overprivileged pre-teens. What follows is a screwball romp in the time honoured, mid-’80s ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ mould: the brats run wild, Hill freaks out, crooks get involved and everyone runs around yelling.

‘The Sitter’ isn’t awful – there are a few decent one-liners and a predictable but sweet subplot involving confused eldest kid Slater (Max Records) – but it’s more bad than good: a noisy, unfocused, frequently annoying and intermittently offensive slapstick misfire.