This film moves along entertainingly with some surprising depth, but ruins all its goodwill with an end that is two scenes way too long.
Alex “Hitch” Hitchens (Will Smith, ALI) is a famed date doctor, who opens up doors for unsure guys to meet the women of their dreams. He keeps a low profile so that he can operate under the radar. He works by referral only. By the looks of his New York City apartment, he most certainly doesn’t need to take out an ad in the yellow pages.
His newest client Albert (Kevin James, TV’s KING OF QUEENS) is an over-weight, slob of a financial advisor, who wants to date his client Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta, RAISING HELEN), a beautiful, world-famous heiress. Think Paris Hilton with some intelligence and a whole lot more class. As Hitch works his magic with Albert and Allegra, he falls for gossip columnist Sara (Eva Mendes, STUCK ON YOU). However, everything that can go wrong with Sara does go wrong. Ellis Island was a magic idea, but goes where no one would ever think.
I really liked the film’s subtle development of Hitch, which was much deeper than I thought it would be going in. The romantic comedy elements were very charming and James is wonderful. Putting some ill-placed slapstick moments and the annoying name choice of Allegra (Albert won’t have to worry about allergies with her) aside, I found myself really coming to like all the characters. But then in an attempt to add crisis, the film goes all wrong.
A misunderstanding between Hitch and Sara creates more havoc than it should have. The result creates a loss of sympathy for one of the leads, which is only made worse by the character’s actions in two final scenes. The only thing that I really ask for in a romantic comedy is that I want to be rooting for the characters to get together in the end. Those final two scenes made me think — forget about it.
So in the end the film tells two love stories — one that really works and one that doesn’t. So I recommend romantic comedy fans to enjoy the good parts of this film and try to bare with the bad ones. Others should rent the movie this film references — JERRY MAGUIRE — for if HITCH would have found a simple “You had me at hello” moment it might have worked a whole lot better.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
