From the trailer, you might be expecting this to be a semi-hip, foulmouthed retread of ‘Adventures in Babysitting’. It is that,sure, but what you can’t tell from the trailer is that it’s also so much less. ‘The Sitter’ is bristling with ignorant stereotyping and tepid sight gags. Jonah Hill’s snappy patter has its moments, but it feels like no one bothered to write a part for him. Everything he says feels improvised, and not in the awesome ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ way.

Most of the laughs are derived from lazy 80’s style mockery of all kinds of subcultures. There’s a gay dude with roller-skates and booty shorts. He gets shot. For laughs. The black people in the movie are straight off of Maury. The adopted Central American kid is an uncontrollable firebug who talks like the Frito Bandito. When the protagonists need money, they steal it from a Bat Mitzvah.

All would be forgiven if the jokes worked. I can forgive most all kinds of heinous content, so long as you make me laugh with it. Sadly for all concerned, the jokes mostly miss, often wildly. Everyone in this movie is better than the material they’re handed, and you shouldn’t reward them with your money.

I guess if you’re really jonesing for some amusing child endangerment, you could just re-watch ‘Adventures in Babysitting’. Or ‘Raising Arizona’ – yeah. Watch ‘Raising Arizona’.