Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Truth to tell I never really expected much from the movie Hitch. The trailers they showed prior to the showing of the movie was good but I didn't want to get my hopes up just in case it may turn out to be only an "OK" movie. Happy to say I was proven wrong and even if I had my expectations up they'd still be met and more! It's basically about a self-styled "Love Doctor" Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens (Will Smith) helping shy, geeky guys win the hearts of the women they're crushing on by creating situations where they could meet and tutor the client on the fine details so they wouldn't mess it up.
Enter Albert Brenaman (Kevin James) a heavyweight clumsy accountant with a low self-esteem who has a huge crush on the gorgeous young heiress, Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) whose accounts are being managed by the company Albert's employed in. After reading in a newspaper that she broke up with her current beau he contacted Hitch and employed his services. Hitch was amused at first and tried to brush him off seeing it would be impossible to get these two together, but after seeing how serious Albert was in wanting to be with her he obliged and began his work. Meanwhile he meets a beautiful streetsmart gossip columnist, Sara Miller (Eva Mendes) in a bar and proceeds to engage her on a date with him. Properly impressed with his unconventional though gentlemanly ways of asking her for a date and conducting the date itself, she soon found herself falling for him, and him, her. But when a scoundrel Hitch refused to help prior had his way with her best friend, Sara went on a warpath to find out who exactly it was that helped him and when the nomen Love Doctor came up she was more than determined to expose his "scams". Meanwhile, despite his nerves and his personal quirks threatening to get in the way, huge sparks were flying between Albert and Allegra. But the question of how long this fairytale is going to last with the threat of Sara eventually finding out the truth and blowing the lid off Hitch's business is left for you to find out.
It's great to see Mr. Smith back in his original element making people laugh after a very long time. His team up with Mr. James is something I would like to see again in future movies. They are quite a team and the way their characters' personalities bounce off each other is priceless. I like that one particular scene where Hitch is trying to teach Albert a few points in dancing and the latter would every now and then bounce (literally) back to his old ways prompting Hitch to boot him out. Ms. Valleta's Allegra Cole is endearing and you could sympathize with her for wanting to settle down with someone she could be who she really is with the danger of being laughed at. She also reminds me of a much poised Cameron Diaz. Hehe. As with Ms. Mendes' Sara Miller, well , she's really gorgeous and quite lovable. She's intelligent, witty, self-controlled most of the times, and... I don't know. She's really beautiful. And, yeah, she does remind me a bit of Cindy Crawford too. And before I forget there's this huge blooper on one scene that I can't believe everybody missed, I'm talking about the placement of the swelling on Hitch's face. In the first scenes like the Fish market and drugstore you'd see the swelling going on the right side of Hitch's face and when the scene changes to where Sara and Hitch were wakling in the park goinng home, the swelling has moved on the left side of his face. So far, in any of those reviews and forums I've read, nobody has yet pointed out this obvious error. Hehe. Still, I totally recommend this one because it's clean and mostly because it rah-rahs the good guys who are interested in women to fight the good fight without getting dirty in the process. Guys, check out the movie's website for some tips and clues on how to court women. It's all worth it!
* Check out also the review in Hollywood Jesus for more insightful reactions to this great movie!
@ 2:49 PM ---> 
