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| Hitch
Directed By: Andy Tennant Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| While helping his latest client woo the fine lady of his dreams, a professional "date doctor" (Smith) finds game doesn't quite work on the gossip columnist (Mendes) with whom he's smitten. [TRAILER] As a single male, it’s been my experience that trite, predictable romantic comedies are most appreciated by couples who are content with their dating lives. For the remainder of us, or at least for a large percentage still playing the dating game, they are viewed as superficial and unrealistic affairs, failing to account for the pain and cynicism that has come to pervade the modern dating scene. Women are wary of shallow men only out for something physical, and men have become wary of women who are all flash and no substance, out only to tease men, because they can, and to find someone who can do something for them. Sounds bitter, right? Ah, but that’s part of the point in “Hitch,” which is one of the first romantic comedies I’ve seen to acknowledge that love is a bit more complicated, and hostile, than simply fluttering eyes, heart-racing kisses and happily ever afters. In fact, Hitch (Will Smith) is the one who helps men first identify and then play this game, giving them a crib sheet to a woman’s heart. He’s the one who meets up with the likes of Albert (Kevin James), shows them the things they’re doing wrong and then gives them pointers so that they’ll stand out from the crowd and get a woman from the point of “hello” to date number three where, as Hitch says, she’ll learn all she needs to know from that first kiss. None of this is to say that Hitch is a jerk, or a master of his trade. He refuses to serve clients who only have sex on their mind and seems focused on helping men who are so smitten that they are willing to change themselves for the woman they love. The second half of the film focuses on Hitch’s inability to practice what he preaches, as he stumbles and stutters along in a series of dates with the cynical Sara (Eva Mendes) who, as a gossip columnist for a prominent magazine, has the power to reveal his identity as the “date doctor.” And so this comedy progresses as a tug of war of ideology, between scenes were the suave Hitch teaches the hapless, but lovable Albert how to be more smooth, and then other moments when Hitch himself fails to live to up to his own advice when out with Sara. The part seems perfectly constructed for Smith, who is a wonderful screen presence in spurts, but starts to lose his footing when too much of the film relies on him. Here, his time is divided between two entirely different parts – the smooth businessman and the confused suitor – and he is given a wonderful supporting cast to fill in the gaps. Most notable is James, from TV’s “The King of Queens,” as the shy everyman who morphs from a shabby, flabby, loser to the emboldened date who tosses his asthma inhaler aside and makes his move. About fifteen minutes from the film’s end, it suddenly becomes obvious how everything will wrap up perfectly, and how all the contrivances of Hitch’s blunders and Sara’s profession will come to build into a monstrous misunderstanding and disagreement. But up until this point, “Hitch” is not a love film that has taken the easiest, and least challenging path. It is a romantic comedy, released for Valentine’s weekend no less, that is willing to look at the darker underside of dating, and at the desperation of some out there in trying to play a game they find unnatural and repulsive. While the tug of war culminates in a way that seems less than believable, I appreciated the fact that there was at least a tug of war occurring, replacing most romances’ moonlit clichés.
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