She Hate Me

Reviewed by Rich Drees

     If there has been a more confused, schizophrenic movie than Spike Lee’s She Hate Me in recent years, than I am at a loss to recall it. The film tries to be a sex comedy, social commentary, drama and political screed all at once and winds up failing on all accounts.

     At 30, Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackie) is the youngest vice-president in the history of a large pharmaceutical company. His success has come at a price, specifically his plan to be married with children by age 31. Following the refusal of the Food and Drug Administration to allow testing of an anti-AIDS drug the company has spent millions of dollars developing, Jack witnesses some questionable behavior on the part of other company officers. When he tries to blow the whistle, he’s fired and labeled a troublemaker, effectively being blacklisted from getting another job. With his bank account frozen and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation hanging over his head, Jack is paid a visit by his former girlfriend Fatima (Kerry Washington) who has an interesting proposition. She will pay Jack $10,000.00 to impregnate both her and her lesbian lover. Pleased with the results, Fatima soon begins acting as a broker to other gay women looking to raise a child, including the daughter (Monica Bellucci) of an aging mob boss (John Turturro). Before Jack knows it, his new “job” will clash with the investigation into his old job and things will snowball out of control.

     Taking enough interesting premises for several movies, Lee has somehow managed to make an incredible mishmash of a film. Portions of the film feel like Lee wants to make a statement about corporate greed in America, a Wall Street (1987) for the new millennium. However, the plot line involving Jack and the lesbians feels more suited for a teen comedy. The last third of the film suddenly turns into an anti-President Bush diatribe and a parallel to the Nixon-era Watergate scandal that grows rather clumsily out of Jack’s SEC investigation. The script (co-written by Lee and Michael Genet) is a muddled mess. Although one expects at least a modicum of socio-political comment in a Spike Lee film, Lee is at his most obvious here. Jack’s name recalls the old radio series Jack Armstrong, All American Bo, with its obvious implications of big business beating down the common man.

     What’s disappointing about this mess of a film the most is that Lee has assembled quite a good cast. Mackie does the best he can with a script that calls for both comedic and dramatic levels of acting that would normally be in separate films. As Jack’s bosses, Woody Harrelson and Ellen Barkin deliver great performances in the little time allotted to them, while Turturro manages to bring a touch of sadness and fatherly love to a Mafia Don who knows that his type of organized crime is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Blaxploitation star Jim Brown delivers a strong turn as Jack’s leukemia stricken father. Sadly these are all performances in the service of a film that doesn’t deserve them.