“Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) is a successful sports agent who’s constantly boxed out by her male colleagues. After a wild night out with her girls, she mysteriously gains the ability to hear men’s thoughts. With her newfound power, Ali looks to outsmart her colleagues as she races to sign the next basketball superstar, but the lengths she has to go through will put her relationships with her best friends and new love interest to the test. All’s fair in love and deal-making in this ‘outrageously funny’ comedy!”
– Official Synopsis
What Men Want was a pretty fun film, however the quality over various parts is somewhat inconsistent.
The portrayals of men and their thoughts were oftentimes stereotypical and unclever.
I personally didn’t have an issue with the “boys club” nature portrayed in the workplace shown. I do think Purl did it better, in less time.
There are homophobic, or at least biphobic characters in the show. There’s a scene where it’s revealed that one character’s husband was having sex with a man behind her back and she throws out an insult like, “You kissed me with dick on your lips!?” as if the betrayal of trust from cheating was worse because the relation was gay.
Tracy Morgan’s character seems like a Tracy Morgan character. While I’m not incredibly familiar with his work, a ditzy rich-guy feels too familiar.
There’s also a couple of odd sex scenes with Taraji P. Henson’s character.
For one, she impulsively decides to have sex with her neighbor (played by Kellan Lutz). After getting ready, she walks out onto his loft to discover him in full submissive BDSM gear. While he should have (realistically) eased her into it, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to be a dominatrix. There are earlier scenes with Aldis Hodge’s character that shows Henson’s character to be forward, forceful, and downright dominating in bed. She also, unprompted, jumps the neighbor’s bones in an elevator, which lead to them going back to his apartment in the first place. She runs out, and this character is never shown again. I am legitimately confused why he was in there, because his joke wasn’t funny.
There’s a later sex scene between Henson and Hodge’s characters where there are a lot of weird pauses and cuts. It felt as if there were shots missing. I don’t know if this was in the theatrical release, but it was incoherent and inexcusable.
The sound design was good. They recorded the “inner thoughts” in a recording studio as opposed to on location. Honestly it threw me off when I first heard it. In the scene her ability was introduced, the man she is hearing is off screen, so you can’t see if his mouth is moving. At first it feels like a mistake and that the audio is unassociated with the scene, but it was a conscious decision to separate the inner thoughts and it was really good.
The audio stayed pretty consistent through the whole film until the very last scene where the dialogue was obviously recorded in post. If it wasn’t, I would be shocked.
The message of the film was inconsistent as well.
At one point it’s about Henson’s character realizing that men aren’t single-minded individuals. There’s a good scene when Henson’s character’s father (played by Richard Roundtree) is meeting Hodge’s character for the first time. Her father is worried about how he is a single father whose only income is bartending. It’s revealed, to the audience, that he is worried because he was a single father and he knows how tough the loss is and how hard it is to raise a child like that. It’s a pretty touching scene about fatherhood and realizing that your parents are complex individuals and not one-dimensional character.
It’s immediately followed by Hodge’s character telling Henson’s that men aren’t walking stereotypes each one wants and needs things that aren’t that different from what women want.
Which doesn’t relay that men are individuals and that they each have their own needs and wants. The aforementioned scene just monologues about how men aren’t all dogs.
At another point, the film is about Henson’s character overcoming her selfishness, dishonesty, and habit of using people. There a scene where one of her coworkers tells her that she’s being selfish and that she gets hers and everyone else can go to hell. She had been using her ability to manipulate men no matter what the consequences were. She didn’t use it to better understand them. At the end of the movie, it seems as if she’s worked around that. She had apologized to everyone she had abused and had finally been recognized for her work at their agency.
However, she then decides to start her own agency and take all of her clients with her. She gets her own and tells everyone else to go to hell. The scene is toted as a victory for a woman in the workforce, but it doesn’t feel as if she’s acting any different from a professional standpoint. Also, the character that had problems with her professional attitude leaves the agency to go with her! Secondly, wouldn’t the athlete’s contracts be with the agency and not her anyway? How would she have clients?
I just don’t understand.