Whoa, baby!

Spike Lee has been called a lot of things, but dull is not one of them. The director’s latest movie, She Hate Me, is certainly not in the upper tier of his work, but it’s still highly intriguing.

Despite it being one of Lee’s most uneven films in many years, it also is one of his funniest and most outspoken, and represents a stylistic return to form for one of our more interesting directors.

Anthony Mackie plays Jack Armstrong, a successful executive for a pharmaceutical company that’s close to coming up with an AIDS vaccine. When Jack discovers that a cover-up is in progress, he blows the whistle and not only literally gets tossed out on his butt but becomes persona non grata in the business world.

At the same time, his onetime fiancée Fatima (Kerry Washington) reenters his life. A successful businesswoman, Fatima is also a lesbian and offers to pay Jack 10 grand to impregnate her and her lover. Soon, Jack has a new side business.

She Hate Me seems to be saying a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. One second it’s a sophisticated and rather racy sex comedy. Another, it’s a cautionary tale about blacks in corporate America. And it’s also about a man finding himself after a life-changing event.

The movie works best as a comedy. Lee takes it from bawdy sex romp to knowing satire and back again. In fact, it’s a little surprising that the film didn’t get an NC-17 rating for its many sex scenes between Jack and his new "clients."

Lee always has been an actor’s director and here he benefits greatly from excellent performances by Mackie and Washington. Also good are Ellen Barkin and Woody Harrelson as the evil corporate types. In addition, there is a very nice appearance by Jim Brown, who was the subject of a Lee documentary two years ago.

Although one can hardly disagree with Lee’s indictment of corporate America, the subplot does little more than act as a buffer for the film’s raunchiness.

One montage toward the end is surprisingly touching. The women that Jack has impregnated all have their babies about the same time and we wimpy men are reminded how courageous women are in just the simple act of giving birth. It is a sobering, gutsy sequence and Lee’s trademark cinematic honesty gives new life, so to speak, to an old cliché.

For all its flaws, She Hate Me is a welcome return to form for Spike Lee. It is audacious, funny, insightful and, above all, passionate. Not too unlike the man who made it.

She Hate Me
R
Starting tomorrow at Ritz theaters

Recommended Rental

Shaolin Soccer
PG-13
Available Tuesday

One of Hong Kong’s top screen comics, Stephen Chow, cowrote, codirected and headlines this blend of sports, action and humor. Sing (Chow) is a modern-day Shaolin monk who has become a master of traditional fighting skills, and is renowned for his "leg of steel." He becomes the center of a team playing in a tournament that could net the athletes a $1-million purse, but even with his footwork, beating the steroid-fueled champions will be no easy task. Shaolin Soccer also features Man Tat Ng and Vicki Zhao.