She Hate Me

SHE HATE ME - DVD Movie

In a long and varied career, She Hate Me is easily one of Spike Lee's most unusual films. On the one hand, it's a drama. On the other, it's a comedy. Then there's the structure: a crazy quilt made up out of several different stories. Even the style is a patchwork incorporating animation and pseudo-documentary--in the vein of Lee's 1986 hit She's Gotta Have It. It all revolves around one John Henry "Jack" Armstrong (8 Mile's Anthony Mackie), a successful executive at a biotech company much like ImClone (the one that brought Martha Stewart down). When Jack blows the whistle and loses his job, ex-fiancée Fatima (Ray's Kerry Washington), who left him for another woman, offers the now-penniless Jack $10,000 to impregnate her. All goes well, so they set up business together, and he proceeds to impregnate countless gay women, including mafia princess Simona (Monica Bellucci). If there's one thing that keeps it all together, it's Mackie, who handles the many changes Lee puts him through with admirable aplomb. --Kathleen C. Fennessy