The 'Ellis Island' First Date Scene In 'Hitch' Makes Me Want To Throw My Remote Through My TV
I watched Hitch last night. I’ve seen this movie about 100x because it’s a perfect “watch it when it’s on TV on a weeknight” movie. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me there. It’s pretty funny, has a good underdog story, yada yada yada, and just like many of you, I’d think to myself, “goddamn Hitch’s got game” just about anytime Will Smith opened his mouth, starting with this scene at the bar:
Spoilers because obviously, but if you haven’t seen Hitch yet that’s your problem not mine
That’s how you do it, my friends. It’s a far cry from the “U wanna hit up the Hangge Uppe this weekend w me?” text messages I fire off at near light speed to a half dozen women every week only to get told “no”. But it wasn’t until last night that I realized how much I kinda hate this entire plot line at the same time. The bar scene was followed up by the walkie talkie scene:
Now OF COURSE it’s a movie and is not supposed to be taken seriously. But at the same time it’s not really supposed to suspend reality too much either, and this scene is where it starts to get fishy for me. Like yeah, I’m fat, drunk and stupid with a billion insecurities and that is NO way to go through life, son, all while Will Smith aka ‘Hitch’ is tall, dark, handsome and has confidence through the roof… but what kind of psychopath thinks this move would work on ANY woman let alone a woman like Eva Mendes/Sarah Milos. Fuck outta here with that. But at the same time, I can live with it. In the one in a million it does work, it’d work for Hitch. So I’ll let it slide.
But then we get to the first official date at Ellis Island:
This entire scene gives me straight up shudders. Like no fucking chance would any of this shit work on a 1st date, ever, in the history or future of dating. Unless she’s also a complete psychopath, any woman on earth would run for the hills as soon as she was handed the wet suit. And I’m not positive on this one but I gotta imagine the Hudson River is disgusting. Like who would want to jet ski in those disgusting waters, let alone on a date? Nobody on earth, that’s who.
Then we get to Hitch stalking her entire family’s genealogy. P-S-Y-C-H-O behavior. Sure if it were like date 5 and a nipple has already made an appearance, yes, it’d be cute. But they’ve only had one 30 second in-person encounter followed by a 30 second walkie talkie convo at this point. It doesn’t matter if her great grandfather was a serial killer or Spanish royalty. It’s a stalker try-hard move and I hate that the movie painted it as anything but that.
I wasn’t sure if I was taking crazy pills thinking this to myself last night, so I did some crowd sourcing on twitter.com:
There were two camps, the “Hitch can do anything because he’s a stud” camp
and the “it’s a psycho move” camp
And after heavy thought, I decided it was, in fact, way too much. And I’m basically Meredith Hoss Goldstein when it comes to relationship advice, so my final thought should be taken as gospel. But it doesn’t stop there.
Hey Hitch, cut the shit with the goddamn canned lines all the time you asshole! This whole toast scene, after they’ve been out on a bunch of dates, is SO goddamn corny. Like come on dude, at least be authentic. This looks like a cheesy line on a $5 wedding card you got at Target:
We are now concluding this blog with me having transitioned from Hitch being a perfect “watch when it’s on TV during on a weeknight” movie to a perfect “watch when it’s on TV even though Hitch is a cheesy, try-hard asshole” movie. Fuck him and fuck Albert Brennaman too. Learn how to eat a hot dog without getting mustard all over your shirt you dick!
PS – in the off chance there are women reading this blog, would love to hear your #thoughts on this. Mind you it’s for a FIRST date, not date like 5 or 6, thx