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Charming film with a 'Hitch' or two

Years before the advent of scary insta-babe shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, Chris Rock had a bit on women who whine about men being liars, yet rampantly indulge in hair weaves, cleavage-creating Wonderbras, colored contact lenses and fat-molding girdles.

I absolutely agree -- I'm all for real self-improvement, but in this day of technology, cosmetic surgery, dating instruction books and whatnot, you can't be sure if you're actually dating a real guy or his "after" picture. And pretty though it may be, no amount of "after" is gonna instantly make him a comfortable conversationalist. Or a nice person. Or not psycho.

Columbia Pictures 'Hitch' Bottom Line: Hitch isn't without, well, hitches, but it's still kinda charming. Director: Andy Tennant Starring: Will Smith, Eva Mendes, Kevin James, Michael Rapaport, Ato Essandoh Run time: 115 minutes Release date: Feb. 11, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for language and some strong sexual references See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer   -- Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Hitch":   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Will Smith), the self-created "date doctor" of the surprisingly effective romantic comedy Hitch, is all about subtly tweaking a guy's rap, appearance, and even his kissing game if it'll help secure a committed relationship with the lady of his dreams. Of course, when the date doctor falls for a workaholic gossip columnist (Eva Mendes), he finds it hard to heal himself.

Besides adding to the canon of movie philoso-hooey ("Any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. He just needs the right broom"), Hitch offers a delicious question in these makeover-nutty times: If a guy gets woo-by-numbers advice on how to win you, is it really him doing the wooing?

Hitch, the guy, is sort of a walking romantic informercial. He, too, was once a 100-pound weakling when it came to women. But after he had his first heartbreak, courtesy of his college girlfriend, he used that potentially devastating experience to transform himself into a ladies' man and love expert of the first order. Hitch now uses that shaman-type knowledge for the good of mankind — for an appropriate fee, of course.

When the movie begins, he's strategically enlisting flowers and cute, fluffy dogs to attract the attention of his clients' intendeds. It sorta bugged me that the clients, who I'm sure were nice people, were nonetheless ordinary, while the women were drop-dead gorgeous. The dork-goddess connection is made over and over again in movies, but very seldom a dorkette-stud gender reversal.

What's that about? The only time Hollywood thought it made that movie was The Truth About Cats and Dogs, and the supposed ugly duckling, Janeane Garafolo, wasn't ugly! At all! The lesson here is either that men are more shallow or that more enlightened women need to write movie scripts.

Albert (The King of Queens' Kevin James), Hitch's latest client, isn't ugly either — actually James has always had a goofy sexiness. But he's certainly not a hottie, either. He's a mild-mannered, painfully shy accountant smitten with Allegra Cole (supermodel Amber Valletta), the tabloid-fodder heiress whose fortune he helps manage. She's sorta like a less vapid Paris Hilton.

But while he's coaching his client, Hitch is falling for Sara, a gorgeous, no-nonsense writer who prides herself in being able to stop a player before he's even started playing the game.

But she still finds herself drawn to him as he drops an obvious but charming rap on her at a bar. Weirdly, none of his usual smooth-daddy tricks go so smoothly, and Hitch finds himself having to reevaluate the slick nature of his game plan.

Surprisingly, most of this predictable shtick works, because of Smith's charming earnestness — we like Hitch even as he lays it on thick.

And I'm quickly becoming a fan of Revlon pitchwoman Mendes, because she's a beautiful woman with equally beautiful comic timing, who, like Debra Messing, is willing to look silly for the sake of a laugh.

Mendes gets further props for being one of the first convincing feature-writing journalists I've seen in a movie in, like, forever. She wears cute T-shirts and jeans to work rather than pearls and heels, she works in a cubicle rather than in a corner office with a personal assistant, and her newsroom is a loud, lively place where people collectively quiet down to hear each other's juicy-sounding phone calls.

While there's little doubt where this is all going to end, it would have been nice if the filmmakers had at least come up with some real, original conflict. And then Hitch, like the date doctor's clients, wouldn't be so easy to condemn as phony.