Review of Hitch (2005) by Brian R — 27 Nov 2013

Hitch opens with Will Smith's natural charms elevating a romantic comedy above the standard female gossip flick. Soon after it falls into being that in Eva Mendes' extended screen appearance where she does nothing but talk about nothing interesting. Once Will Smith comes back, the dynamics are interesting again, which foreshadows what the film is likely to set up.

Hitch is a cleverly humourous examination of the male view of relationships which does handle a realistic understanding of the concepts which constantly maintains a sense of intelligence and realism. It doesn't take a sexist view, and it sympathises with the complications than men have to face as the initiators of a relationship. Will Smith's character, Alex "Hitch" Hitchens intelligently takes advantage of this concept for his own benefit, and this plotline is interesting because of the figures he encounters.

Yet Hitch counterbalances this with cheap and predictable melodramatic romance between Hitch himself and Eva Mendes' character, Sara Melas which is boring, repetitive and completely wrong for Will Smith to be suffering through. Will Smith is the man who stars in films notable for their interesting narratives, ranging from films such as Ali to Seven Pounds, and when the plot is basic like in Bad Boys, he makes up for it with his comedic charisma. Hitch decides to do both, except that his charisma is all put into the male dating concept while he is otherwise forced through boring and humourless romance which only occasionally benefits from his general talent, and nothing else. I mean, Eva Mendes does a decent job and has fine line delivery, but the script is just very dull and generic during these scenes and it introduces nothing new to the screen. There is consistently nothing to elevate Hitch above a standard romantic comedy, save from Will Smith.

The focus on a better plotline isn't sufficient, with the better plotline benefiting from the chemistry between Will Smith and Kevin James who are both famous sitcom stars. Yet they just don't share sufficient screen time. They are the highlights of the film, and yet they are split apart for the most of it. That isn't all that satisfying. Really, Hitch is your standard and cliche romantic comedy with only slight differences thanks to Will Smith and Kevin James, and had Andy Tennant realised how much he could improve by focusing on that Hitch would be significantly better. Alas, that is not the case.

So aside from Will Smith's natural charm, Kevin James' comedic talent and a small role for Jeffrey Donovan long before he made himself famous on Burn Notice, Hitch barely transcends its excessively cliche romantic comedy roots.