SHE HATE ME
Directed by: Spike Lee.
Produced by: Spike Lee, Preston Holmes & Fernando Sulichin.
Written by: Michael Genet & Spike Lee.
Director of Photography: Matthew Libatique.
Edited by: Barry Alexander Brown.
Music by: Terence Blanchard.
Released by: Sony Pictures Classics.
Language: English.
Country of Origin: USA. 138 min. Rated: R.
With: Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Ellen Barkin, Monica Bellucci, Jim Brown & Dania Ramirez.

Despite the warning by his battle-ax boss, Martha Chadwick (Ellen Barkin), up-and-coming corporate VP Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackie) blows the whistle on his company’s financial misdeeds. (This Martha - turned out in sleek, dark pant suits, with short blond hair - more than obviously alludes to a certain person in the news.) Fired, with all of his assets frozen and the subject of a SEC probe, Jack, lured by his shrew of an ex-fiancée, becomes a “bitch boy” - well paid for knocking-up lipstick lesbians.

His sideline career begins when Fatima (Kerry Washington) and her girlfriend Alex (Dania Ramirez) want to become pregnant at the same time with Jack as the father. This doesn’t quite make since Alex and Jack hate each other. Fatima has dismissed going to a fertility clinic - “That’s like shopping for Gucci at Wal-Mart.” And no sooner is Fatima pregnant than she barges into Jack’s apartment with more lesbians following, offering $10,000 each for John’s seed.

Director/co-writer Spike Lee stuffs more issues into this film than it can possibly contain - corporate corruption, the changing concept of family, and even hip-hop culture’s emulation of the Mafia. The film goes on too long with not one but three endings, while the corporate scandal story line sputters to closure. The corny and manipulative SEC showdown where John grandstands (cue the violins) is like a send-up of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, minus the irony.

The dialogue produces some cringe-worthy moments. Fatima finally comes out to John (as if he and the audience didn’t get it), claiming she didn’t tell him earlier because, “I was in denial, and I’m not talking about the river in Egypt.” And the expletive-filled exchanges, straining to be funny, get tiresome quickly. However, the high points of She Hate Me are the fertility follies, especially a sequence of John deflowering his awkward and naive clients. Of course, it doesn’t quite make sense that these high-power lesbians would prefer intercourse to an injection, but then it wouldn’t be a farce. Forget the politics, bawdy humor wins out. Kent Turner
July 28, 2004