‘Hustle’ flows brilliantly
The annual Independent film gold rush at the Sundance Film Festival
normally yields at least one film that the studios fall all over
themselves trying to acquire.
This year’s Indie darling was “Hustle & Flow,” winner of the
festival’s Audience Award and Cinematography Award. It’s not hard to
imagine that Paramount Pictures had their checkbook out before the
film’s first scene was over.
Composed with an enormous amount of wit, humor and emotion,
“Hustle & Flow,” written and directed by Craig Brewer, reworks a
well-worn genre often crippled by cliche. This is the story of DJay
(Terrence Howard), a Memphis-based pimp and drug dealer who is
working trash-strewn back alleys with his stable of girls, looking to
get out of the “life” via the world of hip-hop.
The small-time DJay experiences an epiphany while sitting in on a
gospel music session. He decides to exploit his talent with the flow,
or wordplay, to leave this graveyard life behind to realize his dream
of success as a rap artist. In an attempt to breakout, he enlists Key
(Anthony Anderson), a local music producer, to help him create a demo
in time for an upcoming visit by local rap hero, Skinny Black
(Ludacris).
Set during a typically balmy Memphis summer, sweat clings to DJay,
and the rest of the cast, like sin. Shot in a funky fashion
reminiscent of the great American films of the 1970s, the heat is so
palpable that the characters practically stick to the camera lens. In
this underworld, air-conditioning is a luxury, so much so that Nola
(Taryn Manning), delightfully dim though surprisingly sly, can, as
DJay puts it, “sniff it out.”
Following his turn as a cool TV director in “Crash,” Howard
delivers another great performance as a morally conflicted man trying
not only to survive, but rise above the questionable actions of his
past.
DJay, however, retains our sympathies through the sheer force of
his personality as he and his crew come to understand the necessity
of redemption. Their salvation arrives, not through pretzel plot
machinations, but with characterizations that feel real and most
importantly, earned.
* BOB HARRIS works in a Burbank real estate office. He is an
original son of the South where music flows as big and fast as the
Mississippi River.