She Hate Me (2004)

Directed by Spike Lee. Starring Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Q-Tip, Ellen Barkin, Dania Ramirez, Woody Harrelson, Jim Brown, John Turturro, Lonette McKee, Michael Genet, Monica Bellucci, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brian Dennehy, David Bennent. [R]

Successful biotech executive Mackie gets accused of fraud, loses his job, and has his assets frozen; to get by, he agrees to his ex-fiancée’s (Washington) cockamamie scheme—he’ll become a “stud” for impregnating lesbians the old-fashioned way. An indescribably absurd mess of a movie, covering corporate malfeasance and sexual identity/politics, as well as sub-plots involving rocky family relationships, a Mafioso (Turturro, spending about half his running time doing impressions from The Godfather) whose daughter (Bellucci) is one of his clients, diatribes on AIDS in Africa and the Bush White House, a Senate committee hearing, even flashbacks to the guard (Ejiofor) who discovered the Watergate break-in. Lee’s films often indulge in extraneous rants and sidebars, but rarely to this degree, and never before in such an aimless and tone-deaf “comedic” way; the actors are to be pitied for playing caricatures and having to spout some of this tin-ear dialogue as written, frankly offensive when dealing with Mackie’s gay, baby-starved clientele. Just one of many tastelessly stupid scenes finds a roomful of supposed lesbians practically salivating over the sight of Mackie’s member, but good news for anyone who wants to see Mackie’s face superimposed onto CGI spermatozoa: it’s shown about a dozen times! Title is a reference to a player in the XFL who used “He Hate Me” as the name on the back of his jersey, and this movie is just as much a disposable disaster as that league.

15/100