What Men Want Parent Guide

Ali Davis (Taraji P Henson) is convinced that men want two things – “to get paid and get laid”. Her potential boyfriend, Will (Aldis Hodge), disagrees. “Men and women,” Will tells her, “just want the same thing. To be with somebody they love. Be respected. Be appreciated. Be safe.”

If What Men Want explored the tension between these different points of view, it would be a more interesting film. But all this movie explores is what Ali wants. And what Ali wants is to win. At all costs.

Ali is a sports agent who represents and manages top tier athletes. A leading performer, she expects to be made partner, only to be passed over in favor of a less qualified male colleague. Justifiably enraged, she complains to her boss (Brian Bosworth), who tells her that she doesn’t connect well with men.

Fate clearly has a sense of humor – shortly thereafter, Ali drinks a drug-infused tea given to her by a psychic (Erykah Badu), falls at a nightclub, and hits her head. When she regains consciousness, she discovers to her horror that she can hear everything men (but not women) think. Initially appalled by her new ability, Ali soon realizes that she can use it to level the playing field in a man’s world. But as Ali painfully discovers, all the advantages in the world won’t help someone who is completely focused on themselves to the exclusion of other people’s feelings.

The rest of the story unrolls with few surprises and even less comic relief. In fact, I laughed four times during the film but checked my watch at least a dozen times, wondering how close I was to the end of this tedious film.

From a parent’s perspective, the film’s tedium is the least of its problems. It is literally swamped with profanity: there are approximately 140 curse words in a 117 minute movie. A very conservative count (it’s hard to catch them all when the swear words come in rapid-fire delivery) indicates that there are 41 sexual expletives, 48 scatological terms, a variety of coarse words used to describe breasts and genitalia, terms of deity, and a variety of other curses. As bad as the profanity is, it pales against the sexual content. This movie features frequent discussion of sexual activity – straight and gay – as well as scenes of the actual activity. Ali indulges in reckless sexual behavior on a couple of occasions. First, she gets drunk at a bar, goes home with the bartender, and has extremely vigorous sex with him – she is shown on top of him with her bra on and while a sheet covers them below the waist, little of their activity is left to the imagination. On another occasion, she makes out with a stranger in an elevator and goes home with him, only to leave when she sees him tied up for bondage activities. An episode that is supposed to be funny involves a woman inflating plastic male genitalia at a nightclub: her friends proceed to rub it when they are dancing. When Ali shows up at work with a condom stuck to her jacket, it is supposed to be a funny moment but it falls flat. The icing on the content cake, so to speak, is the movie’s cavalier attitude to drugs and alcohol. All characters are shown drinking alcohol on social occasions, and several are shown drunk. Drug use is frequently mentioned throughout the film and is treated as a comic element, even when it is combined with alcohol consumption.

Although What Men Want makes a weak effort to deliver messages about caring for others and being considerate, it’s too little too late. This crude, charmless film is definitely not what parents want.