The Dirty South just got a little dirtier.
The title of
Hustle & Flow
bespeaks a hybrid quality; its hero lives hand-to-mouth as a Memphis pimp (that's the hustle part) while nurturing dreams of being a rap star (that's the flow). ***image2***Yet first-time writer/director Craig Brewer manages to hover delicately between his two diametric attractors, delivering an unprettied look at poverty and violence while suggesting the possibility of salvation through art.
The premature death of Brewer's own father jarred him into writing the story of DJay (Terrence Howard), a hustler nearing 40 who feels intimations of mortality. The chance acquisition of a hot Casio keyboard rekindles DJay's youthful ambition to lay down crunk (a distinctive Southern style of blues-descended hip-hop, for those of us who've been living in Opryland). His "girls" provide a Greek chorus of worries and support-white-trash Nola (an utterly vulnerable Taryn Manning), and Shug (the sweet, gritty Taraji Henson). DJay stakes everything on a tenuous connection to homeboy-made-good Skinny Black (Ludacris), enlists high-school buddy Key (Anthony Anderson) as sound engineer and scrapes together cash to produce the demo he hopes will capture the rapper's attention. "If I can pimp $20 hos outta the back of this Chevy, I can pimp Skinny," he vows-and we believe him.
***image1*** DJay finds his unlikely counterpoint in Shelby (DJ Qualls), a nerdy white boy with the ability to intuit the thick bass lines throbbing underneath DJay's hoarse, soft freestyle. His layers of percussive, distorted hooks give the raps a crunch and heft we've unconsciously been craving. The first track they record, "Whoop that Trick," moves into your brain and sets up shop-good thing, since
Hustle & Flow
otherwise suffers from an oddly uninspired soundtrack.
Terrence Howard (
Crash, Ray
) is staggeringly convincing; his subtle, quiet work puts the "act" back in "actor." Playing against gangsta stereotypes without romanticizing DJay's exploitative occupation, Howard is fascinating to watch as DJay gropes for transformation, combing out his Jerri curls meditatively, struggling to find language for a new way of being. As his hustler's shtick falls away, so does his muse prosper: DJay's verses possess a kind of purity because they're completely in response to internal pressure-the driving creative daimon to which he refers, earnestly and endearingly, as his "mode."
The uncanny veracity of Brewer's screenplay more than offsets his occasional amateurish directorial choices. It's hard to envision what kind of follow-up Brewer can devise, if he's to avoid the fate of coproducer John Singleton (still trading on
Boyz N The Hood
). Here's hoping he'll be able to hustle without compromising that dirty Deep South flow.
