Hitch

Rating:

A good rental. It’ll put a smile on your face, it just won’t split your sides.

First, a disclaimer, I like Will Smith. He’s got a great sense of comedic timing, and has charisma that makes almost any movie watchable. And in Hitch, I think the director told him to pretty much just be himself.

Hitch (Will Smith) is a dating consultant. He helps guide socially inept men through that treacherous and all important stage of getting and surviving the first date. The movie predictably derives most of its humor from these scenes, but Hitch’s own burgeoning relationship with Eva Mendes’ gossip columnist is nicely paralleled with his toughest assignment: helping King of Queens star Kevin James’ bumbling accountant to a date with super-celebrity Allegra Cole.

The movie goes through the traditional boy meets girl, boy kicks girl in the head, boy loses girl, stages. But I realized something as I thought about the movie afterward: it was just like the going to the opera. It may not have been new. It may not have been a fantastic display of human conflict and drama, or been the funniest movie you’ll ever see, but you got to see people who are very good at what they do.

The movie had all cylinders firing strongly, it just wasn’t a Formula 1 car. It was funny. It was cute. It had the right pacing, complementary cinematography and sets, some good jokes. It was a good movie. It was like seeing a good major league sport. You may know ahead of time who’s going to win, and your team may do it in exactly the way you thought they would, but that doesn’t take away anything from the players or the enjoyment of watching it happen.

I liked Hitch. I’d recommend it for a nice evening home (which all my friends seem to have in store for them now that they all have babies).