The film stars Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Ellen Barkin, Monica Bellucci, Brian Dennehy, Woody Harrelson, Bai Ling, and John Turturro.

John Henry "Jack" Armstrong is a financially successful and upwardly mobile executive at a biotechnology firm who, following the suicide of a colleague, Dr. Herman Schiller, is falsely accused of securities fraud by his superior, Leland Powell.

In order to make ends meet, he becomes a sperm donor, initially by acquiescing to the desires of Fatima Goodrich, his ex-fiancée who came out as a lesbian and now wants a child.

This leads to Goodrich goading Armstrong into establishing a business in which groups of lesbians come over to his house and pay him $10,000 each to have sex with them in order to become pregnant.

Armstrong's situation is portrayed as a cause célèbre, with protests being held in support of or against him, and the news media interviewing people on the street with respect to his sexual activities.

Armstrong is called before a committee of the United States Senate investigating his alleged securities fraud, where both his services to lesbians and his relationship to the "Bonasera crime family" are raised.

Armstrong's situation is compared, to the plight of Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the break-in that led to the Watergate scandal, which brought down President Nixon.

Spike Lee based the title of the film on XFL football player Rod Smart, who gained some notoriety by nicknaming himself "He Hate Me".

The site's critic consensus reads, "She Hate Me can't decide if it wants to be a commentary on corporate greed or a sex farce".

[13] Some critics called it offensive, with Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly giving the film an "F" grade and writing it "manages to be at once racist, homophobic, utterly fake, and unbearably tedious.

"[14] Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe opined, "the movie is rude and ridiculous, fearless up to a point, and breathtakingly hungry to provoke", but it "struggles between the audaciousness of its premise and an underlying defensiveness.

"[13] Ebert argued Lee knows the lesbian plot line is absurd, but uses it to "confront the pious liberal horror about such concepts as the inexhaustible black stud.

In an essay for Little White Lies, Erik Nielsen argued the film was misunderstood at the time of its release and that it is "a funny, sometimes ridiculous, yet ultimately insightful commentary on race inside American capitalism.

"[18] Liam Carroll of The Spool posited that in making Jack an object available for women, Lee is "perhaps...trying to turn the objectification of women on its head: Jack often strips for his clients, who woo and scream and goad him on...Or perhaps Lee is commenting on the hoary old stereotype of the black male's alleged potent sexual virility.