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Hustle & Flow (2005)

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From Time Out London

Getting sympathy for a pimp is a tricky task for a movie, but not an impossible one; that the lead character of ‘Hustle & Flow’ is violent, misogynistic, exploitative and self-absorbed is less of a problem than the film’s exaltation of those attributes as the basis of an admirable personal transformation. Hats off, then, to Terrence Howard’s central performance: as Memphis hustler DJay, fending off a midlife crisis by taking a shot at a hip hop career, he creates a sense of palpable frustration, then desperation for something better than writer-director Craig Brewer’s script can offer.

Brewer gives a convincingly shabby feel to the impoverished Southern locale, from the cast’s uniform sheen of sweat to the egg-carton sound insulation of the home studio DJay sets up with an old friend (Anthony Anderson) and a skinny white church boy (DJ Qualls). The crunk tunes they produce there are pretty catchy too – hooks like ‘it’s hard out there for a pimp’, ‘whoop that trick’ and ‘stomp that ho’ notwithstanding.

But the music’s creation confirms rather than challenges DJay’s meretricious worldview: he bullies one of his girls into singing a catchy chorus (the highlight of her life, she later blubs) and pimps another out to get a better mic (a tactic she later embraces to promote his music). The action builds towards a tensely shot bar-room summit with a hip hop star (played by Ludacris), a hometown boy made good whom DJay determines to impress. The aftermath should be the final wake-up call to a character mired in destructive egotism; instead it proves the springboard to a gangsta’s fantasy of triumph.

Author: BW

Time Out London Issue 1838: November 9-16 2005

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