Hustle & Flow
March 2006 Reviewed by: Wes Marshall Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

There were two movies last year that received wide acclaim and starred Terrence Howard. One made a clumsy attempt to show the ugly effects of racism by creating a crossword puzzle of a story where everyone had burdens, all suffered from shortcomings, and yet there was an almost magically forced redemption at the end. That film is Crash, and it will win a truckload of awards this year. More people saw it because it had more white people in it.

The other film, Hustle & Flow, says much more about racism, burdens, and paths to redemption in its opening scenes than the whole of Crash. Nowhere near as many people saw Hustle & Flow. It only had two white people in it.

Hustle & Flow is the story of a pimp named DJay (Terrence Howard) who hustles girls, pot and anything else he can to make ends meet. One day he ends up with a little Casio keyboard and starts making music. He sees a way out of his life of pimping, and a way he can take his posse along with him. He enlists a friend from high school, Key (Anthony Anderson), who just happens to have some recording equipment. They add a synth player from church named Shelby (D.J. Qualls). Now if they can just talk Arnel (Isaac Hayes), the bar owner, into getting DJay in front of Skinny Black (Ludacris), a local guy who’s made it big as a rapper. Then DJay’s plan is to enlist Skinny Black’s help in getting a record contract.

It would have been so easy for Hustle & Flow to descend into stereotypical T&A with sweaty humping and excessive, noisy violence. Instead, while writer/director Craig Brewer never lets us forget what these folks do for a living, he never resorts to rubbing our noses in the silt of their day-to-day life. Instead, he focuses on the ways that these people, living on the fringes of society, are just like you and me. In accomplishing this, Brewer takes a hint from the great director John Ford, who would drop us in the middle of the most incredible bunch of people, then show them doing the same things we do, things like having a meal, or talking after dinner. It’s a powerful tool for making the audience relate, and the cast and Brewer handle it perfectly.

Ultimately, the most important statement about racism in Hustle & Flow is the most insidious. Terrence Howard lights up the screen in a way I haven’t seen since the classic days of Hollywood. Take any "A" actor of the last 20 years -- Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks. None have the immediate charisma of Howard. There’s something in his eyes and demeanor that radiates both strength and vulnerability. He has the magnetic good looks of a Clark Gable and the "aw shucks" wholesomeness of Jimmy Stewart, yet he also has the ability to play a tough Memphis street pimp.

So what’s racist? That Terrence Howard is known as a black actor. Racial modifiers are always an insult, but with Howard, they are even more so. Take Ludacris, also a surprisingly good actor and working in both Crash and Hustle & Flow. His goal seems to be to portray specifically black characters, living a certain African-American experience. Terrence Howard goes way past that and taps into the character’s global humanity. It becomes a performance that connects to every human being. There’s magic there, and, mark my words, if he can get a few more good roles and doesn’t get a big head, he will end up as one of our greatest. His work in Hustle & Flow is as powerful a star-making turn as Jack Nicholson’s in Easy Rider, John Wayne’s in Stagecoach, or Robert De Niro’s in The Godfather II.

The other actor who makes an impact is the positively stunning Taryn Manning. With her bottom-of-the-breast-length tightly corn-rowed blond hair and her pouty facial expressions, she gets the sexy part right off. But the scene where she kisses the microphone (chapter 13) and shuts off the fan is just so sweet, it’ll make you cry. And though I don’t want to give the ending away, I do want to tell you that I spent many years in the radio business and what happens at the end of the film really happens every single day in the radio business.

Each actor, down to the smallest role, does a truthful job. And, of course, when one actor is good, it’s the actor, but when all are good, it’s the director. Craig Brewer had made two films prior to Hustle & Flow. As far as I can tell, neither The Poor and Hungry nor Resolutions of the Complacent Man are available in any format other than the original film, so unless you have a good repertoire film house, you may never see them. It’s amazing how this extraordinarily talented -- white -- writer/director was capable of pulling off this incredibly detailed account of life in black Memphis. His next film, Black Snake Moan, due later this year, is about a nymphomaniac (Christina Ricci) who goes to an old blues man (Samuel L. Jackson) for a cure. It co-stars Justin Timberlake. If he can make a good movie out of that, I’ll really be impressed.

The Hustle & Flow DVD gives a good representation of cinematographer Amy Vincent’s gorgeous work. It originated on 16mm film (it was blown up to 35mm for theaters), so a good dose of graininess is to be expected. The sound is just what you’d expect from rap: compressed, bass-heavy and slamming. There is one scene in chapter 5 of dazzlingly beautiful church music that is recorded skillfully, and the dialogue, with its tough vernacular, is clear and distinct.

The extras form an interesting story of the genesis of Hustle & Flow. All of the participants get a chance to talk about their part in creating the film, and you really get an idea of what a group project Brewer encouraged. By the way, producer John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Four Brothers) who, in the making-of feature, acts as though he just casually wrote a check to finance this film, actually had to go to the bank and mortgage his home. That’s putting your beliefs on the line.

I think that’s a good way to sum up the whole film. Brewer took a marginalized group of humans and instead of providing the normal shoot-'em-up, he decided we should notice our similarities. Terence Howard, who initially was against the idea of playing a pimp because he considered it a racial stereotype, instead takes a chance and makes the character an everyman.

Hustle & Flow won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005, and the filmmakers walked away with a record $9 million deal from Paramount / MTV.

And Terrence Howard is up for the Best Actor Oscar. I’m glad the Academy noticed.

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