The Hitch

My original title was "This film angers me" as a hook so I could explain that I was angered by Hichens not taking better care of himself, but I didn't want to come across as being too negative against the man.

The film is an interesting overview of Hitchens professional and personal life, and is more or less a pastiche of his cumulative life, and doesn't dwell on any one aspect of his existence.

He lived his life the way he wanted, and to hell with anyone else. He called a spade a spade and didn't care how much reverence was heaped on the worst of mankind; including Mother Theresa for which I cheer whole-heartedly.

The one thing I got from this film was the shared frustration that both he and I experienced in life from people who, no matter how much double standard they were exposed to, wanted a simple solution in the form of a moral person they could point to to make themselves feel better, no matter what wrong had been done in their name.

History is rife with people using boogy men to scare the uneducated masses to get their way, but no matter how many instances or times that were documented, people fall back on popular reputations of people they like or who make them feel better.

Sports fans love their athletes. Movie fans love their stars. Religious people love their saints. People love their idols. And no amount of logic and example will dissuade them. Especially if it's made up.

And Hitchens, watching this movie, to me, seems to have come to a point in his life where he was at "Red Alert" intellectually for much of his life, and was able to lob intellectual artillery shells at the inane and intellectually destitute.

But is that what he wanted? No. And for all his ability to relish in his verbal sparring, one gets the sense that he would have preferred not to do that. As an atheist watching a man with whom I finally agreed with in the lime light, it was painful to watch someone who knew all the loopholes physically depreciate and disintegrate before our eyes.

Ultimately this film, to me, says "Hey look, here was this human being who could fend off the lies and brought us cutting edge commentary on world hypocrisy. But now he's gone."

Like I said, this film is an homage. It doesn't look at Hitchens' life in detail, but gives a nice artistic overview, and in the end I felt angry and empty that someone with my views was taken from existence by mutated cells taking over his body.

It's worth seeing at least once, but I'm not sure I can watch it again.