What Men Want: Film Review

What Men Want: Film Review

Cast: Taraji P Henson, Tracy Morgan, Aldis Hodge, Josh Brener
Director: Adam Shankman

An uneven script, doused in a smattering of MeToo gags and some current pop culture references, does not help Taraji P Henson in the latest take of the Nancy Meyers Mel Gibson  flick, What Women Want.

Henson is Ali, a ball-busting sports agent, who's stuck in a firm that's clearly a boys' club and bouncing from one one night stand to another. Rejected again to take partnership in the firm, Ali finds her world further complicated when at a bridal shower she meets a psychic (an unhinged Erykah Badu) who gives her the ability to read men's minds.

Faced with the possibility of using this to get ahead at work, Ali becomes re-energised and desperate to get a star client before her other compadres.

Clever references to Get Out and crowd-pleasing Black Panther moment aside, What Men Want seems to be lost in its own execution, an uncertain mess of where it wants to go and how it wants to get there.

Henson is uniformly excellent though, giving Ali a ball-busting bluster that's needed early on, and a life that shows that she's as good as the boys in the Boys Club sports agent company to get ahead. But saddled with material that's rote and formulaic does little to help Henson rise out of the mire, no matter how hard she tries - and no matter how hard the script tries to mix Jerry Maguire with Entourage.

It helps little that it aims for every low-hanging fruit it can, barely hitting some of them with the crass bat swinging in every direction.

There are obvious learnings here, and perhaps that's what hinders What Men Want - unless you're a gaggle of women, boozed up and after a girls' night out, the film's less than content to satiate many in the audience. It's shallow as you'd expect, giving the men thoughts about body image, promotion, social climbing and work insecurities, as well as the usual sex issues.

Ultimately, while a love story with Aldis Hodge is reasonably well handled, Tracy Morgan's involvement feels like a muted amount of bluster to be fired in the direction of the audience. Supposed to be a foil for Henson's Ali, Morgan's Joe Dollar feels weak and badly-timed for the necessary gags.

All in all, What Men Want is a weak attempt at a feminist bout of humour. Were it not for Henson's all-in approach, the film would be torture for nearly two hours.

As it stands now, it's still torture, but a little more endurable in parts.