Hustle & Flow

Hustle & Flow (Director: Craig Brewer)

HUSTLE & FLOW won 1 Oscar:

Original Song: "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman, and Paul Beauregard.










Brewer hasn't made anything you've likely seen. This is his first big splash. The Memphis native filmed the movie in his hometown. Produced by John Singleton.

This is one of those movies that is more of a character study than a plot-driven movie. It concerns the aspirations of pimp DJay (Terrence Howard, who is getting early Oscar buzz) in getting into krunk rapping in order to possibly leave the life. He sees hometown hero Skinny Black (Ludacris) make it big in the game, and yearns for that same type of success, and even hopes to be able to meet him one day and give him a demo tape. Even his hos are in on it (the excellent Taryn Manning, Paula Jai Parker, and Taraji P. Henson). Helping out is old school chum Key (Anthony Anderson) and white-boy-with-soul Shelby (DJ Qualls).

The fun of the movie comes from seeing the process by which his songs get made, and they are head-boppin', but this can get a tad repetitive. There's always some sort of snag that keeps the movie from gaining momentum, and then it gets a tad ugly in the end after the movie had refreshingly steered away from violence and unreasonable behavior. That refreshing aspect comes from the character of DJay, with Howard infusing him with a smoky, rhythmic cadence, and the infectious "mayne" he puts at the end of seemingly every sentence. All of the acting is real good in this, but the story is lacking, and this might not be a great experience for those looking for a little meat in a movie.

For sure, though, this will appeal to the audience to which it is intended: The MTV crowd who is into hardcore rap.