ACTION man Will Smith turns lover man in the slickest of slick Hollywood romantic comedies.

He is the Hitch of the title, New York date doctor Alex Hitchens, whose job is to hitch up men with the improbable girl of their dreams, while facing inevitable hitches in his own life.

"Any man can sweep any woman off her feet. He just needs the right broom," says Hitch, in the first of many Hitch bon mots to camera.

"The first kiss will tell you everything you need to know about a relationship... life is not the number of breaths you take; it's the moments that take your breath away....," he could go on, and he does, with familiar doe-eyed Will Smith charm.

Hitch is the broom to do the requisite sweeping, or at least he is steering the broom handle, and he has plenty of meat on his plate in his latest client. Albert (Kevin James, big in American sitcom television apparently) is an overweight, clumsy accountant with a tendency to squirt mustard from his hot-dog on to his groin. Being an accountant, he has an eye for figures, and that figure is rich and fabulous high-society celebrity Allegra (model Amber Valletta).

James's Albert is as willing to learn as a Labrador, and no challenge fazes suave Hitch, except when his goofing pupil oversteps the mark in the art of learning to kiss on the doorstep. (Hitch's tip by the way, boys, is to see if your date plays with her keys in her hands before opening the door; if she does, you're in).

So far, so Steve Martin helping Rick Rossovich's dim fireman in pursuit of Daryl Hannah in Roxanne when in love with her himself, but Andy Tennant's comedy romance diverges from that path in one key plot component. There is a second woman.

Albert's wooing of Allegra is progressing without a hitch, but Hitch is in need of his own date doctor, because all his own methods go out of the window when he encounters Sara Melas (Eva Mendes), a gossip column queen who is as hot as her news stories. Hitch has the hots so badly, he loses his cool in her presence, becoming as accident prone and ham fisted as Albert used to be. The silver tongue turns to lead; his heart learns it has more than one pace, and his every move is a backward step.

Tennant's Hitch is a broad romp, largely steering clear of the more dubious aspects of Hitch's job while making great play of James and Smith's comic timing. Mendes is delicious, but the early quickness of wit wears off, and as the pace drops, so Smith's crispness softens.

Updated: 15:53 Thursday, March 10, 2005