Have you ever walked away from a bad movie thinking about one or two things that caught your attention or made you laugh – things that didn’t redeem the experience but formed a silver lining around an otherwise waste of time? I experienced a doubleheader of epic banality last Friday when I took in “The Sitter” and “New Years Eve” back-to-back in the same theater, but in each case, I found one thing I liked.
In “The Sitter,” it was Jonah Hill’s performance as a shockingly irresponsible babysitter. Hill plays Noah, an unemployed college dropout who lives with his mother and excels at avoiding physical activity, save going to third base with the girl he thinks is dating him. In one scene, his mother yells at him from upstairs to answer their phone, which is across the room from him, but instead of getting up to answer it, he repeatedly yells back, “Mom, the phone’s ringing...” The plot is ludicrous. When Noah’s mother cajoles him into babysitting for her so she can go on a date, he reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself in charge of three problematic children. Later, when his girlfriend calls from a party and says she’s ready to go to fourth base with him – and also asks him to “pick up some blow” for her on the way – he loses all good sense and agrees. Before the inevitable scene in which Noah races to clean the house and get the kids in bed before their parents arrive home, he drags the youngsters along with him as he winds up on the wrong side of a drug dealer, barely escapes with their lives, and has a heart-to-heart with each child.
Although “The Sitter” lacks wit and imagination, I did enjoy Hill’s performance. His genial, laidback qualities as an actor somehow turned a complete loser into a likable guy. I usually dislike watching Hill because he improvises a lot of his dialogue, and in most cases, it’s awkward and humorless. But here, he seems at ease, and while he clearly made up many of his lines on the spot, they sound natural and at times even elicit a chuckle. That might be faint praise, but when you’re stuck in a theater watching a bad movie, you look for anything that helps you to maintain your sanity.
The only saving grace in “New Year’s Eve” is a hilarious two-minute scene on a freight elevator. In the sequence, eager partygoers pack into the elevator, and then an elderly lady scoots in and starts to close the door. When a young man attempts to help her, she quickly smacks away his hand and then proceeds to ever so slowly complete the task on her own. The concept and execution were perfect. The rest of the time, I felt like I was watching the worst episode of “The Love Boat” ever conceived. Like its predecessor, “Valentine’s Day,” “New Year’s Eve” leaps chaotically between several subplots, all of which involve people who are loosely connected. There’s the dying old man who wants to see the ball drop, the nurse who helps him, the young man and woman who get stuck in the abovementioned elevator, the rock star who dumped his fiancé, the caterer who got dumped, the young office runner who shows a middle aged spinster a good time, etc., etc., etc. Detailing all of the plotlines, each of which stars one or more major celebrities, would apparently be too tedious to attempt, as even the usually exhaustive Wikipedia fails to offer a synopsis. “New Year’s Eve” is poorly constructed, appallingly dull and has the audacity to try to pluck the heartstrings, as if it’s earned an emotional response. Individually, each vignette gets about 20 minutes of screen time, which doesn’t leave much room for character development or for anything remotely interesting to take place. But there is the elevator scene. And the unintentionally amusing shots in which a million or so Times Square revelers wear goofy Nivea hats and wave blue balloons. Yeah, that would happen in New York.
“The Sitter” is rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and some violence. One star out of four. “New Year’s Eve” is rated PG-13 for language, including sexual references. One star out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.