Hitch

Normally, it is Bollywood that lifts from Hollywood films. On watching Hitch, I had a faint suspicion that director Andy Tennant may have secretly been watching a lot of Yash Chopra-Aditya Chopra-Karan Johar brand of fluffy romances.

Namrata Joshi

Updated on: 8 February 2024 4:29 pm

Published at: 16 April 2005 12:00 am

Hitch

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Rating:

Normally, it's Bollywood that lifts from Hollywood films. On watching Hitch, I had a faint suspicion that director Andy Tennant may have secretly been watching a lot of Yash Chopra-Aditya Chopra-Karan Johar brand of fluffy romances. Why, there's even a patently Adi Chopra-moment (in turn borrowed from Richard Bach) in Hitch—soulmates crossing each other's path unknowingly, without acknowledging each other's presence, little realising that they are destined to be with each other. Now remember the famous crossing of Kajol and srk at Leicester Square in ddlj? In Hitch, this magical moment transpires in a noisy bar.

Smith plays Alex Hitchins, a date doctor who makes pots of money advising some not-so-good-looking, at times fat and balding men on how to get together with the most gorgeous women. His claim—"three dates is all he needs". Doesn't this remind you of SRK's funda in Kal Ho Naa Ho: chche din, ladki in (get the girl in six days). Don't ask who's better, the energetic SRK is infinitely preferable to a haughty, insolent Smith. As in all good fairytales, one fine day, our relationship-fixer too falls in love. That too with a career-conscious, time-deprived, intimidating society columnist Sara played by Eva Mendes who looks a bad cross between Gabriela Sabatini and Hilary Swank (yes, it is possible!). Well, after a whole lot of proverbial misunderstandings they get back together and all's well that ends well.

The film banks a lot on humour which is wholly slapstick and is all about making fun of fat, unattractive, bumbling men who are bad dancers and much worse kissers. The rom-com lacks charm, the passion is largely plastic. The love premise is derived from all those self-help books which reduce man-woman relationships to quick-fix formulae. Watch out for enlightening lines like: "love happens in a blink", "life is not the breath you take but the moments that take your breath away". But all of us do know life is infinitely more layered and complicated than such silly simplifications. Maybe not. The film's success makes one ask why? Is it because it offers hope to fat, unattractive, balding men that "every man can sweep every woman off her feet"? Rest of us can stay happily cynical.