Good-naturedly funny

Rating: 7/10 (12 May 2006)

While the "date doctor" concept is the one thing that saves this film from being an otherwise average romantic comedy with a standard plot for the genre, I found it enjoyable enough to elevate my opinion of it so I ended up liking it a lot more than if it'd had just a mediocre plot without many twists. Will Smith does a great job, as always, acting as Hitch, the man who devotes his life to advising men how and how not to win over women...ever since his failed attempt to keep his college girlfriend. There're plenty of laughs as he tries to help his latest patient, overweight, gawky asthmatic Albert Brennman (Kevin James) successfully court beautiful co-worker Allegra Cole (Amber Valetta). Also, when he decides to rid a woman he meets in a bar of the turkey who just doesn't seem to get she doesn't want him around, he finds himself attracted to Sara (Eva Mendes) - it appears to be a big deal for him, so I guess since college he never actually practiced his own rules on himself. Unfortunately, Sara is a gossip columnist who is interested in "the date doctor" who got a seemingly dorky guy like Albert together with Allegra - especially AFTER player/jerk Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan) breaks her best friend's (Julie Ann Emery) heart and hints the date doctor he saw disgusted him, when she doesn't realize that he refused to see him. Still, trouble follows and Hitch is stuck left wondering about what to do with his own relationship, while not being any great help to Albert when he tries to figure out what more to do in his. The acting is good, there's a great deal of humor and some other fine points with meaning. Hitch's character is witty and wise, sometimes managing to be both at once. True, the misunderstanding where the woman is affronted at something the man hasn't truly done (why do they always show that?) as common and irritating - guess it wouldn't have been if it was the 1st, not 5th, time I've seen IT - but the rest of them were completely new. I only wish this movie was longer - I remember being able to watch 3/5 of it while it was playing on a restaurant's TV once - but I still approve. It's definitely worth the money to pay for its brevity.