She Hate Me is Spike Lee at his controversial best. True, it's met with more than it's share of critical derision, mostly because Spike tried to cram (this is a pun - believe me) too much stuff into one movie. To which I'm in agreement to a certain degree, but whatever you do, don't let the critics cause you to miss this incredibly fun and funny film.

Lee sets this morality tale to the backdrop of big corporate corruption, but at it's heart it's a fairly simple story that ends with Spike positing something of a Brave New World. Jack Armstrong (likable newcomer Anthony Mackie) plays the vice president of a pharmaceutical corporation that's on the cusp of cashing in big time because of a pending registration of the first AIDS vaccine. Unfortunately, it leaks that the FDA is not going to greenlight the wonder drug and a lot of insider trading before this revelation is announced brings the corporation under fire from the SEC and on the verge of financial collapse. The guilty parties include Woody Harrelson and Ellen Barkin, who contrive to pin the rap on Jack; and overnight, he is out of a job and the SEC has frozen his bank account.

Just prior to all this, one of the scientists who worked to develop the vaccine commits suicide but not before giving Jack a CD Rom that outlines in indisputable detail the actions of those who are truly guilty of the wrong-doing. Before Jack can even stop to consider his next move, his ex-fiancee shows up at his penthouse apartment with her lesbian lover in tow. It seems both women would like to become pregnant and would like the genetic father of their children to possess the physical and intellectual attributes that Jack could contribute.

Jack is at first appalled at the proposition, but in light of his financial straits and the more than generous offer for his services sways him to compromise his moral objections. Fatima his ex (played by Kerry Washington) soon returns to his door with half a dozen maternally inclined lesbian women equally eager to part with 5 grand for a sample of Jack's baby batter. Natually, Jack is aghast at this stepped-up business venture, but again the math of the thing gets the better of him and before long Jack and Fatima (now his agent - who takes her cut) have got a very lucrative cottage industry rolling, with only a little viagra and some Red Bull as overhead.

Lee has assembled a terrific cast to flesh out this latest Joint: Lonnette McKee and Jim Brown play Jack's colorful parents and Q-Tip plays his nerdy younger brother who becomes a reluctant fan of his brother's new-found popularity. Again Lee falters by trying to squeeze a little too much plot and some typical black polemics into the mix, but the film never ceases to entertain and challenge the audience. One sideplot that thickens the soup involves a reticent Italian lesbian (played by the beautiful Monica Bellucci) who shows up at Jack's door unescorted. Anyway, bada bing Monica is knocked-up with twins and as it turns out she's the daughter of a Mafia don played by Lee-vet John Turturro. This sequence ultimately plays a little flat, but figures into the plot when Jack is halled-up before a grand jury.

As I alluded to above, Lee puts a brave an unexpected spin on the ending, that I really liked and that I think renders alot of the films' criticism inconsequential. Yes, his jabs at the "system," and "corporate greed" were clumsy, certainly by his own standards. Even the dialogue is uncharacteristically flat in stretches, but at the end of the day, She Hate Me, is a good bit of lively adult fun, that I would give a strong recommendation. And I would never give away the ending. It's worth the price of admission, regardless your complaints about Spike's tendency to turn everything into a matter of black and white. On a saddening sidenote, She Hate Me will also go down in history as one of the last performances by the late great Ossie Davis.