A scarefest & a feel-good movie

Will Smith is Alex Hitchens. He is Hitch, the "Date Doctor" to his clients of homely gentlemen looking for that recipe to snatch the women of their dreams into their tender arms in a conquering embrace of true love.

Hitch has had no problem with his thriving trade until he meets Sarah Melas (played by the charming, beautiful Eva Mendes), a gossip columnist whose relationship with men is guardedly limited to the initial pleasantries. Hitch, who coaches portly accountant Albert (Kevin James), who in turn pines for New York’s ultra-socialite Allegra Cole (Amber Valleta), finds himself in the same boat as that of his clients. He can’t seem to find the right footing whenever he is around Sarah.

Eventually, Sarah and Hitch find themselves falling in love until a shocking revelation hits Sarah and puts the budding romance into trouble alley.

Andy Tennant’s light, feel-good movie attempts to break the "chick-flick" drawback of every romantic comedy by focusing on the affairs of the dominant male lead. In some aspects (especially the early part where the central character is slowly being introduced and built up), it succeeds. The casting of Smith is particularly praiseworthy as he was able to channel a completely different persona from that of an action hero the audience has grown accustomed to.

However successful this spin is, the final product still leaves a big gaping hole that not a simple patch of tested romantic formula can completely fill up. The imagined crisis as the movie was about to end comes off too contrived and lacks credibility. I wonder why the characters of Sarah and Hitch took forever to define only to take a bewildering turnaround in the end.

Or could it all be explained by the oft-blamed four-letter word: love? I don’t know, because I thought this movie had it but then it lost it in the end.

Boogeyman

Barry Watson is Tim, an up-and-coming news editor with an uncanny fear of closets in this scarefest with weird psychological undertones and surprising twists and turns.

As a child, Tim witnessed his father’s abduction by the Boogeyman, who lurked in the dark shadows of his bedroom closet. The vanishing was downplayed by his family and Tim was made to believe his father simply abandoned them. His mother was committed to an insane asylum soon after.

It is now 15 years after that dreadful night and yet Tim hasn’t gotten over his fear. He has been consulting with psychiatrists and he has not been successful in combating this terror in his heart.

He is forced to relive his nightmares again when his mother dies. At the funeral, he meets a mysterious child who may or may not be the key that will unlock the secrets of the evil phantom.

This movie works surprisingly well. The terror and suspense it generates was sustained pretty much all throughout the tense one-and-a-half hour running time. There are clichés, of course. But they were effective in building up the creeping atmosphere of dread and help make room for effective twists in scenes. You think you know what will happen next based on how movies of this kind usually play out.

This low-budget thriller ($7-M), this movie achieved what loud, visual-effects laden, costly horror flicks failed to do: take the audience to a wild, jolting ride of dreadful anticipation.

The use of psychological and mental suggestions in some of the scenes bring to fore additional questions that further make the story more involving. Could these things be really happening or is Tim just taking us for a ride? Could it be that he did not take his father’s abandonment of them well and played out this neatly woven tale of a Boogeyman who will, at any moment, strike from behind the darkened shadows of the closet and take away one’s loved one? We don’t know for sure, but we are thinking.