2K Replay: HITCH

 by Adam Riske

Winner for “Favorite Movie Actor” (Will Smith) at the Kids’ Choice Awards.

• Best Scene/Moment: Will Smith and Michael Rappaport playing pool. It’s like something out of science fiction because Rappaport is the stable, non-neurotic one and the movie posits that Rappaport is the wingman/best friend/brother-in-law to Will Smith’s Hitch character. And then we never see Rappaport again. This scene haunts me with its untapped potential.

• Best Song (tie): This is next to impossible. The Hitch soundtrack rules. I’m going with a tie between “1 Thing” by Amerie and “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D. & The Boyz.

• Best Merch: A “Hitch Japan Movie Program…” for $3.25. I like that he’s James Bond now for some reason.

• Director Grade: Hitch was directed by Andy Tennant.
Great Movies: Fools Rush In
Good Movies: Hitch
OK Movies: The Secret: Dare to Dream
Bad Movies: It Takes Two, Sweet Home Alabama
Unseen By Me: Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Anna and the King, Fool’s Gold, The Bounty Hunter, Wild Oats
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Bewitched

• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Guess Who, Wedding Crashers

• Never Talk to Strangers or Hitch? Hitch.

• Mall Movie? Maybe eventually at the end of its run. For starters though it would play at the fancy theater in town where you take your date after dining at an upscale bistro.

• Only in 2005: A Will Smith romantic comedy. It’s insane he doesn’t have at least two more of these.

• Scene Stealer: Kevin James wants this superlative so badly but I’ll go with Adam Arkin who is basically just an outlet store of unsold George Clooney mannerisms.

• I Miss: Movies having the courage to name a character Vance Munson.

• I Don’t Miss: Virtually all of the wisdom Hitch parses out. He sounds like a Disney parks vlogger on YouTube. Here are a few examples:

1. “Like I always tell my clients: begin each day as if it were on purpose.” UGH

2. “Because that's what people do! They leap and hope to God they can fly. Because otherwise, we just drop like a rock, wondering the whole way down, "Why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am, Sara, falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly. That's you.” BARF

3. “Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.” YIKES

4. “Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.” STFU

• 2005 Crush: Eva Mendes.

• 2025 Crush: Paula Patton.

• What I Thought in 2005: I wanted to like Hitch more than I did but it was fine and I liked the performances and the ritzy New York-ness of it all. I was in my early 20s and dating a lot at the time so this was an important text.

• What I Think in 2025: It’s what Siskel & Ebert would call a marginal thumbs up or down. I can’t decide. It’s the type of movie that on DVD is just okay but if you catch it in the wild on TBS in a hotel room it feels like an 8 out of 10. I’ll give it this…it’s better than many fellow romantic comedies of the era (era) and Will Smith & Eva Mendes have good chemistry together.