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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
One
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Spike Lee commentary. Deleted scenes.
Behind the scenes featurette.
SPIKE Lee is never one to do anything by half measures. For his
last film, The 25th Hour, he
tackled a drug dealer who was attempting to put his life in order
on his final day before prison, and set it against the backdrop
of a New York attempting to cope with the recent attacks of September
11.
His latest, She Hate Me, sees Lee taking on the over-sized corporations
of the US (such as Enron, etc), while simultaneously tackling
issues of ethics, race and sex, in the form of a lead character
who attempts to get out of difficult financial times by becoming
a sperm donor for a long list of maternal lesbians.
Sound absurd? You bet, but there's no denying the curiosity value
in seeing how events unfold, particularly as Lee has assembled
another stellar support cast, in the form of Woody Harrelson,
John Turturro, Monica Bellucci, Brian Dennehy and Ellen Barkin.
The only trouble is, once you emerge the other side of it, you're
likely to feel as uncomfortable as an overdue mother, due to the
film's wayward plotting and dubious conclusions.
The film starts promisingly enough, as Anthony Mackie's Harvard-educated
biotech executive, John Henry 'Jack' Armstrong, discovers that
his company is bilking investors and employees out of their stock
investments, following the suicide of a leading scientist, and
promptly informs on his bosses.
His actions initiate an investigation into the company's business
dealings by the Securities and Exchange Commission, prompting
him to be fired and framed as the fall-guy, upon which he is also
cut off financially.
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A visit by his ex-girlfriend, Fatima
(Kerry Washington), however, offers a way out of the nightmare.
If he will agree to become a sperm donor for Fatima and her lesbian
lover, Alex (Dania Ramirez), he can earn himself $10,000 in easy
money, so long as he physically sleeps with at least one of them.
Casting his feelings aside, Anthony does the deed, only to find
himself bombarded by maternal lesbians seeking the same service,
and he reluctantly agrees to sleep with each of them, signing
away his father's rights into the process.
As time passes, however, his conscience catches up with him,
and he gradually comes to examine the morality of his new-found
career-choice, while also fending off the investigation into his
former company.
Yet, for all of the intriguing scenarios Lee's film puts forward,
the delivery is so sloppy that much of the impact is lost amid
the crassness.
Lee rams his message home with all the subtlety of a drunken
one-night stand, tossing in images of animated sperm, orgasmic
lesbians and caricatured Mafia-men and corporate bosses into the
bargain.
As a result, the film seems more absurd than satirical, and quickly
outstays its welcome.
What's more, it feels like a terrific waste of talent, given
the big names the director has managed to assemble.
Harrelson, for instance, is an unlikely company boss, while Ellen
Barkin is far too one-dimensional as his career-fixated right-hand
woman.
Bellucci veers towards embarrassing as one of the lesbians seeking
Mackie's assistance, while Turturro's Mob boss provides more laughs
than menace, especially when delivering a comic take on The Godfather.
Had Lee cut down on the big name support, and kept things more
intimate, this might not have seemed like such an overblown failure.
But as it stands, it's an ambitious but hopelessly flawed fiasco
that even straddles the boundaries of good taste.
By the time his pregnant mothers start delivering amid a chorus
of screams towards the movie's unsatisfying climax, you might
just feel like joining them.
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