clever, but there's a "hitch"....

Rating: 5/10 (25 September 2005)

After a razor-sharp, if a bit unbelievable, opening sequence, this settles into a slightly humorous tale of a dating specialist. If you have the patience to wait five minutes between laughs, then you may be all for it. But there was something just a little too breezy about the whole thing, that I just didn't fall in love with it.
At first you think Smith is pulling a "Ferris Bueller" by addressing the camera. But this is suddenly dropped and only referred to again in the final shot. But Smith is given some insightful material on dating, men and women, and the tricks used to acquire such. Some on-target, like a guy offering to buy a tired female jogger an ice-cream. Or implausible, with the opening nonsense involving a dog in a bag(??) and a faked accident.
They then set up the James/Smith partnership, which I was surprised was not the core of the film. Because it's Will Smith, I guess the makers felt necessary to give him a romantic sub-plot as well. The James bits, though a bit ham-handed and too reliant on slapstick, had a certain charm because he and Smith click on screen. But the woman James is chasing---a dead ringer for Cameron Diaz---doesn't evoke that "dreamgirl" quality that an audience would root for.
Later it's time to delve into the Mendes/Smith courtship, which is more sluggish. Mendes, an oddly faced actress (sometimes she's cute, sometimes she looks like a guy), is one of those spit-fires who seems like it'll take a crowbar and some dynamite to get into her heart (punctuated by an incredibly forced "meet cute" in a bar, laden with annoying third-person chat).
Which leads to another problem with Smith's elaborate dates. Yeah, it would be nice if we all had thousands of dollars to go jet-skiing around the East River, or have a private tour of Ellis Island. And don't get me started on the "everybody forgives everybody" happy ending. Plus movie-junk where everyone is connected in some way or another. He knows her, but she finds out it's him, and he didn't know she talked to that guy...ugh. Or the fact that Smith is outed as "The Date Doctor" and it turns into tabloid fodder all over Manhattan. Like anyone would care there's a misinterpreted player out there trying to coach guys on how to score with women. Snore.
But if you're a viewer who can disregard that and suspend disbelief, you'll at least laugh here and there over the course of the running time.