If you listen to a lot of "old school" film critics, then you will quickly get the picture that they think going to the cinema started to die with the birth of the multiplex. It seems that the moment we started to get more choice (higher number of films and a larger number of screens to watch them on) going to the cinema has started to become more like flicking on the TV at home.
The reason I am bringing this up is because I want to talk cinema etiquette for a moment. They are kind of unwritten rules that everyone should understand, but what a lot of people are choosing to ignore at the moment. Some of these rules include; don't go on your mobile phone once the lights have dimmed and the film has started, resort to whispering once the film has started (only if absolutely necessary) and don't shout out remarks/opinions during a film, because no one cares.
When I went to see The Sitter, the person who sat in front of me decided to break unwritten rule #217; when you are forced to take a seat in front of someone in a crowded cinema, you have to slouch down so they can see.
Instead, the person who sat in front of me decided to sit bolt upright. I was literally sitting there like a meercat for half of the film trying to catch at least half of the screen in front of me.
This is just another prime example of who you watch a film with (both with your friends and the absolute strangers who you share the cinema with) can have a massive impact on what you think of a film. I mentioned before that with Horrors I prefer to watch them on my own however, in the case of a comedy I much prefer to watch them with a group of people I know.
The Sitter revolves around a slacker, Noah (Jonah Hill) who decides to babysit his neighbours three children so his Mother can go out to a party and meet a new man after divorcing Noah's Father. What follows is a collection of cliches and situations that have very little plot stringing them together as Noah tries to repay a drug dealer for the cocaine he lost while trying to score drugs for his "girlfriend" (a girl who he gives sexual favours to... not really his girlfriend).
While I say it's a collection of cliches, it doesn't really harm the film as going by the poster alone (which features a rather firm looking pole dancers rear end) I hope you won't be going to this film to see a deep dramatic storyline.
While Hill does a fairly good job of stringing the film along with his loveable, good-natured but dim-witted character, the film does fall a bit flat in the middle. It just doesn't seem to go anywhere for ages and the threat from the drug dealer is never properly established.
Think of The Hangover - the characters in that film are constantly being checked up by the fiancee in order to find the missing Groom-to-be and the antics that they got up to the previous night catch up with them all the time to create some really funny conflict in the storyline.
The Sitter just never really uses the conflict that it created properly. For example, there is a scene right near the beginning where Hill is confronted by a child's clothes shop employee and asks why he is waiting for someone in the child's underwear section. While risqué, the running joke of Hill being an untrustworthy creepy man in a car full of children could have been quite funny.
However, The Sitter does provide enough laughs in order to keep you entertained and can easily help you waste a lazy afternoon. I don't know if it's too early to say, but definitely keep an eye out for the young Landry Bender (who plays the daughter, Blithe) who provides a brilliant and biting look at the youth of today's obsession with celebrity culture.
*** / *****
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