"Dating is impossible in a post-feminist world", she said.

Rating: Null/10 (21 August 2009)

I have to give this film credit for trying since, in my opinion, the following exchange at the climax of the film IS the climax of the film. At the speed-dating night, Eva Mendes says to Hitch:
Eva: You're a scam artist. You trick women into...
Hitch: ...into getting OUT OF THEIR OWN WAY so that great guys like Albert Brennaman have a fighting chance.
The message of this film is that lonely women who are looking for love can't find it because they make it so difficult for men to do all the work that guys need help to get past the intimidation/rejection/game-playing factor. Enter Hitch, the "dating scam-artist with a heart", the "how to pick up any woman" guy who only works with those looking for love, not sex. It's a cute movie but not the one it could have been.
How many times do we have to see a girl kneeing a guy in the crotch? Did the bad guy deserve it? Not really. But the real problem is, he never sees it coming. If Mendes had tried to kick Kevin James in the crotch, he might have fallen for it. The guy she DOES knee in the crotch was a dick, had experience, and would have seen it coming and kneed HER in the crotch. He winds up with his head up the bull's ass which is a funny shot but not funny enough to endure another "knee in the crotch" scene.
Hitch says "...if you've been to high school (clue!) you know that girls hitting guys is a good thing". That would have been great if he'd added "...until two years into marriage when the guy gets tired of it and hits her back and winds up in jail then divorce court" or "...until 3 weeks later when the guy dumps you and you can't figure out why." No real man is going to let a girl hit him, publicly or privately, and if you let her get away with it, she'll think you're a passive idiot. This is one of the 119 things this film DOESn't know about relationships. Fortunately, the film suggests that women don't know anything about men, either, or they wouldn't be so lonely/dissatisfied. When Adam Arkin's wife tells him to shut up at the food event, I'd love to have seen him say "...why don't YOU shut up, darling?" then continue on.
Because that's another aspect of this film. It's not just about the difficulty of making contact with the opposite gender, it's also about why men don't WANT to make contact, why men in particular don't WANT commitment (besides the financial factor). This film says it's OK to knee men in the crotch if you don't like them, hit them when you DO like them and tell them to "shut up" at public gatherings. What they don't show you is the "hiring a divorce lawyer" scene.
Hitch seduces Mendez by creepily getting too much information about her, hiring waterskis and messengers with walky-talkies and gifts. Overkill. If his character knew anything about women, he wouldn't bother trying so hard.
Hitch recognizes his own fear of being hurt and rushes to Mendez' apartment where he forgets everything he ever knew and makes an idiot out of himself which is supposed to be endearing. If all of Hitch's knowledge of women doesn't allow him to get her to acknowledge her own mistakes then he and Eva are probably doomed, too. Yes, Eva tried to apologize in a previous scene but the writers manage to make her do it without making a total idiot out of herself.
It was just another example of the problem to have Mendes continue to play games with Hitch by letting him assume that her brother-in-law was her lover. For Hitch to continue chasing her at that point was stupid.
In the end, Hitch is a good guy who changes a little and Eva is an "I've been hurt by men and it's all their fault" girl and she changes a little. Does she ever suspect that her major problem with men is herself/her tactics/her games? Almost, maybe, kinda, sorta...probably not really.
This film tries to say that a major obstacle in the relationship sphere is that women play too many games. I give it credit for that. I wish it had gone a little further. It might have been more relevant.
The interesting, almost unspoken message of this film is that both Mendes and Hitch are angry at the other gender and both are trying to help their own gender either by "winning" (Hitch) or by "warning" (Mendes). Meanwhile, both have opted to back out of the commitment scene. Both sides are angry but can't figure out why. It's because they're playing a game where the rules keep changing and both teams are cheating and so no one can win. It's a crooked game played on a field where the grass is always greener on the other side of commitment.
In one of the "extra features", a female dating expert says "when you're talking to a girl and her friend at a bar you have to buy them both drinks". HA! I'm suspecting that she's "the friend" a lot because no one would buy anyone a drink to talk to her. She's the type of "men pay, women take" dating expert who keep men out of relationships.