Starring: Will Smith, Eva Mendes,
Kevin James
Released:4th March 2005
Cert: 12a
Hitch (Smith) is an urban myth;
he is ‘The Date Doctor’, an expert on the male and female condition and
professes to be able to get any man to woo any woman. His intentions are wholly
honourable though and doesn’t set up one night stands but goes for the full
life-time commitment thing.
Yes, chaps, love.
His clients are made up of social
misfits; those average Joes who are dysfunctional around women brought on by
lack of confidence and self esteem. Sometimes it’s not surprising they have
problems relating to women especially when these ‘geeks’ are chasing
‘hotties’.
The major irony of the story is
that Hitch, himself, is a single man and suffers from a series of unfortunate
incidents when he starts falling for gossip columnist Sara (Mendes) whilst
assisting his latest shmo-client (James) to successfully date a rich, successful
socialite.
How many feel-good moments can
one film contain before it starts causing diabetes? Because this one has
hundreds; even within the first ten minutes we are introduced to a few of his
successful clients and you start grinning like a big sap. Hell, it’s not often
that the ‘nice’ guys really do come first and then continue to do so throughout
the film.
Smith is on comfortable territory
playing the affable and charmingly confident matchmaker, and even though a few
of his methods seem a bit sly, ultimately they are designed purely for the men
to be noticed and allow their personality to do the rest of the work.
The set pieces between the plot are very funny as Smith leads James (King of Queens) through the rules of engagement and his
own dating mishaps escalate beyond the norm.
The story itself is uncomplicated and contains no twists that haven’t
been seen a thousand times before but that’s not what Hitch is trying to achieve; it’s a
really ‘nice’ film about really ‘nice’ people actually deriving some happiness
out of life which, as I said, is a rarity for a storyline these days. It strips
away the cynicism of male and female motives and intentions to restore some
faith in human nature. But then, that’s probably the only way you’d see an
overweight, lowly accountant get to go out with an ‘it’ girl – only in the
movies, guys. Sorry.
