HUSTLE & FLOW [2005] review
January 7, 2006 · Print This Article
I have discovered another great back-to-back set of movies to watch. Tonight pairing HUSTLE & FLOW with last night’s CRASH has made for an unintended showcase of Terrance Howard. … From the meek, yuppie character he played in CRASH, to the real, gritty, philosophical, dreaming pimp he plays in H&F. This movie shows the transformations that can happen in a person’s life, and the people around that person, when they find and act on their dream, their “mode” as I believe Djay [Terrance Howard] calls it in the movie.
Ludicras was also in both CRASH and H&F and I was impressed especially by his acting in the former.
The movie’s tagline is, “everybody gotta have a dream,” and unlike so many other movies, the dream in H&F is about being famous, it’s a dream about doing something that inspires you, just for the act of doing it itself. … He doesn’t once talk about moving out of his beat up house and buying a mansion, he doesn’t talk about fame. What he talks about is people hearing his dream, which is expressed in his raps about what life is really like on the street and how it feels to have to do those things. … To me this is what any musical artist should want, there music heard by as many people as possible without concern about getting paid. They complain about their music getting shared on the Internet, but isn’t that what they should be wanting as artists?
Anyway, through the first two acts of the movie I was just going with the flow and rhythm of Djay’s daily life and later his raps. Suddenly toward the end of the third act I found myself suddenly panicking about his fate. The director (& writer) Craig Brewer never asks us to like Djay or approve of what he does for a living. He does this by making pimping seem like a normal job that requires certain managerial skills, and not really much else. He does get support from a hooker on maternity leave, from a back in the day friend producer, a “light-skinned” brother, and his “financial investor.” His dream overflows into all these people’s lives, giving them something shining.
In the end, I couldn’t help myself pulling for him and his dream.
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