She Hate Me almost makes me think of a very talented student rushing through in one night to write and present a sloppy thesis on the state of corporate America and male/female relations, and you do feel the spirit and ferocity at times of the same man who made Do the Right Thing. BUT the fact that the man DID make Do the Right Thing makes this all the more of a quagmire of a shmorgesbord. I wanted to give it a chance, despite all of the lambasting from critics, but they are not really that unwarranted. There are a few small things involving the sex scenes (no pun intended, I think) that are noteworthy, but for the most part this is a fiasco that only someone with the temerity, skill, and daring to go as far as this can pull off. There's a flip-side to the coin of ultra talent with auteurs Lee and De Palma and Herzog and Coppola and others, which is that the same life that goes all through an original work can sometimes be crippling if wielded the wrong way. This film just simply tackles way too many ideas into one way too long package, and it's all the more frustrating for the bits that could, in a whole other context, maybe be pulled off with a little more insight and skewering.

The two major sides, aside from the side-bars involving familial ties with John Armstrong (Anthony Mackie) and his friend (who has one of the worst plot-strands involving a bad sperm test),are the corporate drudgery and the lesbian impregnations. Guess which one is less credible? Not that Lee and his collaborator really tackle the former side with a lot of gusto or much of anything; Armstrong, the vice president at a pharmaceutical company who doesn't seem to know that there is corruption involving stocks and prices involving a vaccine for AIDS (that, by the way, has a 75% success rate, as if that's a bad thing!),sees a former scientist friend jump to his suicide, and has on a disc all of the juicy details, thus leading to whistle blowing, and being fired from his job. This is when Lee and his collaborator get into the biggest pickle that they can never squirm out of, as up to now they have material that isn't terrific, but has some promise to be developed. But then comes the latter plot-line, involving Armstrong's ex girlfriend (Kerri Washington, who between her character and Dania Ramirez's character are the most infuriatingly simplistic lesbians I've seen depicted recently on film),who will pay to get impregnated by John.

This is where the "fun" begins. By fun I mean just pure illogical hijinks meant to be exaggerations, but Lee never makes it really believable about what kind of exaggeration, not once. It might be one thing if only a few of the nearly twenty lesbians Mackie knocks up enjoyed the sex, but ALL of them do. Furthermore, the character is having sex over and over and over again, time and time again on each night. The biggest problem of all, encompassing this big chunk of the picture, aside from it being there to give Armstrong more 'dimension' and to add the whole aspect of the title to it all, is that Lee doesn't know how to balance the satire with the more dramatic points, and worst of all for a satirist the material falls flat and isn't funny. They do try, the women do, to rake up the laughs with their cheesy bed exploits, but it's meshed together into a premise that is so ridiculous to accept that it loses its energy very, very quick. If not for the awesomely bad cartoon sequences involving Armstrong sperm and lesbian eggs, it would be even more excruciating. At the least, for a few moments, there is pure absurdity in the midst of chaos.

Throwing into the pot are the usual bits of black/white commentary (the mother of Armstrong being mixed, which wouldn't be an issue except that it is Spike Lee making it one),the Turturro scenes (was this just a favor to put him in another movie?),and a comparison of Armstrong to the man who blew the whistle on the Watergate break-in, not to mention montages involving births and more undercooked slices of Enron-style semantics. And alongside the thematic sloppiness Lee falters stylistically as well, if not as frequently and befuddling as with the substance; some of this looks like it was shot for CBS prime-time mixed with a few touches of the usual color schemes that are Lee trademarks, as well as the oddly up-beat and muzak-like musical score. By the time She Hate Me finishes up, one is privy to so many questions about what just happened that it could fill a small notepad.

Maybe it's best to think of it as something the director had to get out of his system, like a mis-begotten Viagra fueled ejaculation ala Armstrong, and could move on to greener creative pastures. All I can say is that if you do proceed, do so with caution, as it's the biggest blunder I've come across so far from his career.

There is no doubt that Spike Lee is one of the best movie directors working these days. He is an original. Mr. Lee ought to be seen more often. His films are always well crafted; he evidently enjoys working with the same team and it's obvious the actors love Mr. Lee. In his hands they all turn great appearances.

This film is a curious thing. As written for the screen by Michael Genet, the film tries to touch too many themes. It's a political look at something that went wrong in our past history, as well as an expose of corruption in high levels and a funny comedy about a man that is in the center of helping women get fulfillment.

Mr. Lee is perhaps telling us in a subtle way that we cannot ignore deceit and corruption in higher places. Corruption comes Jack Armstrong's way without he asking for it. He happens to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Jack was the epitome of a Buppie and his fall is caused by the system where he was a successful executive.

The performances are fabulous. Anthony Mackie, as Jack, is one of the best male roles in any Spike Lee's films. It helps that Mr. Mackie is an incredible actor who will go to bigger and better things and it's sad at the same time because Mr. Lee will probably will not be able to afford his salary in future films, the same way he can't afford Denzel Washington, or Samuel L. Jackson.

John Turturro keeps coming back to work with Mr. Lee and they both have a certain bond and they work well together. The mafioso played by Mr. Turturro is something not to be believed, as is his dialog. Ellen Barkin makes a rare appearance. She is an actress that projects sex appeal and mystery at the same time. Monica Belluci has a small role. Woody Harrelson also appears briefly. Lonnette McKey and Jim Brown are Jack's parents and they are good in their roles.

Kerry Washington as Fatima, the entrepreneurial young woman who comes to the rescue is a fresh face that is a welcome addition to the film. She is a talented actress who can hold her own against Mr. Mackie all the time.

As usual, music plays a great deal in the film. Terence Blanchard's score is never intrusive, but it balances the action well. The great cinematographer Matthew Libatique has given the film a patina that is rich and sensuous, at the same time.

Spike Lee is an acquired taste. Yes, we like him more every time we see one of his films!

Whoever "she" is in the title, it could as well refer to critics and the "me" to Spike Lee, because it's just as if the controversial director deliberately made THE film that would draw a definite line between a feeble minority who still believes in his genius, and the rest of the world who misunderstands when not hating him. I'm not to be counted on the 'haters' crowd although I certainly can understand the misunderstanding.

First, "She Hate Me" tells not a story but an aggregation of stories effortlessly crushed and condensed one another. It's about Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackle) a young bio-tech executive who exposes the corrupt practices of his top-management, until the whistle blows against him and makes him the target of a media conspiracy. Suddenly, the story takes a 180-degree turn and Jack becomes the sperm donor for wealthy lesbians. From thriller to comedy, these directions were already two too many, but then Spike Lee fearlessly injected his darling: racial commentary.

Jack, a black man, is immediately compared to Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the Watergate break-in, and the film turns into a political movie where a man has to prove his integrity while he already was accused of fraud, and you have the unbelievable synchronism of two civil actions in the same film. As if it wasn't enough, you have some romantic comedy, since his ex-fiancée initiated the whole sperm-scheme. Fatima Goodrich (Kerry Washington) is a lesbian but still has feelings for Jack. And the icing on the cake comes from John Turturro as Don Bonasera (a joke for any Godfather fan),the father of one of Jack's customers, played by Monica Belluci, and bingo, the Mafia joins the story.

Naturally, these plots don't have the same narrative density but they're all treated with different tones, following multiple directions, from politics to sexuality, naturally racism, justice and ethics, it's "Look Who's Talking" with "The Firm", "Erin Brokovich" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with Spike Lee's trademark social commentary. The whole ingredients create one hell of a cocktail, spicy, sweet, sour sometimes, but with some refreshing qualities about it. This is not for every taste, but I liked it for one reason, I trust Spike Lee's intelligence.

I know that if he makes me believe that a man can impregnate six women the same night, much more with orgasms, that John Turturro plays a Godfather-like figure and is the father of Monica Belluci (nine years younger and a totally different accent),or that Armstrong would clear his case after one inspirational speech. Then I guess, the point of the story is elsewhere, and as I say about many films that flirt with parodies to better emphasize the absurdity they denounce, without being preachy: it's not about giving the right answers, but asking the right questions.

And the most important one that miraculously plays as the common denominator of all the subplots involving Jack Armstrong is the notion of price, financial or symbolical, it's about responsibility which is the price the conscience pays for dignity. This is the reason his friend and doctor commits suicide in the beginning, the scam involves a medicine supposed to cure AIDS but at what cost? Given that AIDS patients are mostly from poor backgrounds, especially in Africa. Well, I hope the time we ask ourselves that question will come soon.

But it's through the lesbian plot that Spike Lee raised such important questions it inspires one word for me: prophetic. Now that in most occidental countries, LGBT communities got the right for marriage, the next step for their fight is the right for adoption, and here it gets sensitive. In fact, it's the very reason many people were against marriage in the first place; they knew it would pave the way to the issue of adoption. Now, for someone who deliberately takes a path that prevented him for giving life (by natural ways) is the desire to have a child selfish or legitimate?

I say 'selfish' in consideration to the child who'd grow without the two parental figures, or because having a child makes only sense when the child is the fruit of love. The problem in the film is that the lesbians want a child because they feel they have to have one, it's obvious for them while it's not, biologically speaking, the other one is that they want to be mothers in total carelessness toward the necessity of a father-figure, as if it was negligible. And thirdly, they pay a price for it. And that's the connection with the AIDS issue. Many people are poor and need money so, aren't we leaning to a situation where children will become items, when wealthy homosexual couples will be able to order children from people eager to pay, because adoption is impossible. When anything has a price, even a child can, and don't think I'm cynical, a political militant in France said that it's as normal for a woman to rent her belly than a worker who rent his arms.

This is how low we can sink, and I guess Spike Lee, doesn't try to preach but finds the right ending to this confusion, by inserting the idea of love and responsibility, because it's lives of children which are at stakes, and it can't be dictated by the content of a business paper, because precisely: business isn't humanity, money isn't conscience, and sex isn't love. Lee found one hell of a way to get to that point, but the film is entertaining, insightful, with a subtle wisdom hidden underneath the seemingly chaos.

It's not "Malcolm X" or "25th Hour", so I invite the haters to base their criticism on Spike Lee's more conventional films, because "She Hate Me" is his piece of weirdness, and he's entitled to make one, like Quentin Tarantino does and gets everyone drooling about it. But I guess Lee is also the Frank Wills of filmmaking.