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The Sitter begins with Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill) in the lap of luxury, literally, by going down on Maris (Ari Graynor), and after being given plenty of praise, he’s disappointed to learn that she won’t return the favour.
The bad luck continues when he gets home to find that in order to still allow his mum to go out for the evening, he has to replace a babysitter who’s just cancelled for the Pedulla family. Cue a close-up on the breasts of Mrs Pedulla (Erin Daniels), as he goes in for a hug.
The first child he meets is Slater (Max Records), who says with conviction that, at 13, he can’t babysit his siblings because his doctor confirms he has severe anxiety issues and cannot handle responsibility. He’s then introduced to Blithe (Landry Bender), who wears far too much make-up and then sprays perfume in his mouth, and Rodrigo (Landry Bender), who the Pedullas recently adopted from El Salvador and who is a closet arsonist.
All of the kids need locking up, but just as he starts his babysitting shift, Maris calls and says she wants him to come to a fantastic party where, if he does, she’ll promise him sex. Meanwhile, due to being arrested a while back for driving under the influence, the Pedullas ban him from driving their car. Still, there’s only one way for him to get there and that’ll mean he has to take the kids on what he calls, “a field trip”.
Along the way he inadvertently causes a security alert in a clothes store, gets accused of being a paedophile, he loses Rodrigo, he attracts the wrath of a drug dealer,
There’s a lot of very clever writing, whether it’s amongst the madcap situations that take place, or even with Noah’s heartfelt moments with the kids, that make it probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to a John Hughes/John Candy film without either of them being around. I know that’s a bold statement to make, and I didn’t think I’d be saying it myself, but at times it does feel like the new Uncle Buck. It’s also good to see that despite being centred around children, it doesn’t hold back on the strong language.
Presented in the original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio and in 1080p high definition, the quality of the print is superb throughout with bold colours and no defects on the print.
For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
Audio-wise, the film is presented in DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio and there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary as it’s not a special FX film, but it does the necessary without any issues.
The extras are as follows, and while it looks like there’s a lot, only a couple of them have any substance:
- Deleted/Alternate/Extended Scenes (25:54): Ten of them here, and some of the extended ones play the film-based content for so long that
whatever’s extended in it just disappears into it and there’s not much that’s great to watch.Out of the clips included, I’d keep the first one and that’s all. Later on, I’m sure that the deleted scene “Kids on the curb” is actually included in the film.
- Gag reel (2:37): The cast corpse during filming.
- Sits-n-giggles (3:03): The cast ad lib a lot.
- For your consideration (1:01): Just a lot of noise from Landry Bender (Blythe). Quite pointless.
- The Making of The Sitter (15:23): Chat from key cast and crew, with on-set filming.
- Jonah the producer (4:59): He’s one of the executive producers on the film, although that title could actually mean anything.
- Theatrical trailer (2:11): Presented in 1.85:1.
The menu features clips of the film set against the movie’s theme. There are subtitles in English and more additional languages than I can count, or even work out as each one is stated in their original language and I don’t have an actual box that lists them all in English. My Blu-ray player tells me there are 31 selections!
Thankfully, 20th Century Fox are one of the few distributors still putting a decent number of chapters into their Blu-rays and DVDs. This one has 24 over the 87-minute running time.
Sadly, there are trailers shobed *before* the main menu, like the old days of rental video, and as such, I will not be listing them here. They should be in the extras menu.
The Sitter is out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
9 10 7 4 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 81/87 minutes
Year: 2011
Cat no: F1 50195 BDSE
Released: May 14th 2012
Chapters: 24
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio (English only), DTS 5.1 (English only), Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Polish
Subtitles: English plus just about every language on the planet.
Widescreen: 1.85:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: David Gordon Green
Producer: Michael De Luca
Screenplay: Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka
Music: Jeff McIlwain and David Wingo
Cast:
Noah Griffith: Jonah Hill
Marisa Lewis: Ari Graynor
Julio: JB Smoove
Karl: Sam Rockwell
Slater: Max Records
Blithe: Landry Bender
Rodrigo: Kevin Hernandez
Mrs. Pedulla: Erin Daniels
Dr. Pedulla: DW Moffett
Sandy Griffith: Jessica Hecht
Garv: Sean Patrick Doyle
Ricky Fontaine: Jack Krizmanich
The twins: Grace Aronds and Jane Aronds
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.