The babysitting subgenre was essentially conceived and perfected in one fell swoop with the release of the 1987 gem "Adventures in Babysitting". To throw Jonah Hill and a ragtag group of misfit kids into a similar premise is certainly a solid foundation for a comedy, but unfortunately "The Sitter" was unable to recreate the magic of Elisabeth Shue and Co. in 1987.
This is by no means a remake, albeit the similarities are striking, but instead a re-visioning ripe with tired cliches. Jonah Hill plays Noah, a loser for all intents and purposes who has found himself stuck babysitting three irreverent little miscreants. The movie starts off on a rather lackluster sex gag and things just progress rapidly downhill from there. The plot painfully unfolds with little to no character development, but moreover, no sense of cohesiveness. It's just a string of predictable jokes stretched out to 90 minutes and strewn together with the shoddiest of "heartfelt" moments.
Underneath the layers of terrible humor exists a positive message of sorts; the gist of which is simply be true to yourself. Of course this message fails to shine through amidst the "sharting" gags and such, but it's the only real bright point in the film so I thought I'd at least mention it. Noah becomes a mentor of sorts about halfway through the film as the kids begin to open up to him one by one. It the movie weren't so riddled with ridiculous sequences these Hallmark moments may have held more weight, but that wasn't meant to be I suppose.
Jonah Hill delivers what stands to be a stock performance playing the same character he always does, which is sad to see because it appears as if he's carved himself into an acting niche that he won't ever be able to escape from (eg Michael Cera). Surprisingly enough, Sam Rockwell provides the main source of comedy in the role of Karl, a unorthodox drug dealer who seeks to get revenge on Noah after a drug deal gone wrong. The kids themselves also delivered noteworthy performances, but again, the film suffers from far too many complications for anybody to walk away from this a winner.
Conceptually, the movie's main malfunction stems from it's horrid script. I'm talking scene after scene of just cringeworthy lines. Dump upon that a failed attempt at a love interest, a scatterbrained plot, and a terribly forced resolution and you have yourself the theatrical equivalent of waiting in line at the BMV on a Saturday. Do yourself a favor and watch "The Muppets" multiple times over, because this is not the holiday comedy you are looking for.