Hustle & Flow

Hustle & Flow is not the film I expected it to be when I heard it described early last year. The inspiring story of a street pimp who schemes his way into the rap industry? Featuring DJ Qualls and Anthony Anderson? Um...thanks but no thanks.

But, of course, I was wrong. Craig Brewer's indie hit brings a lot more to the table than just the novelty of a pimp protagonist and some B-level film comedians in supporting roles. It's a gritty, realistic and observant story about a scumbag loser who reevaluates his life and decides he wants something more.

My friend and fellow blogger Ray compares it to Rocky, the archetypal underdog story. That's true of Hustle & Flow, but it's only part of the story. This is also a character study about an unrepentantly violent criminal, an exploiter of women, a drug dealer, who wants to give up the street life but can only do so by using and manipulating those around him. To stop being a criminal, in other words, he has to do crime.

To his credit, Brewer does not try to sugarcoat his pimp hero, 30-something Memphis thug DJay (Terence Howard). We see all the sides of his personality, from his boyish exuberance to his dry sense of humor to his seething rage. But it does beg the question...Does DJay deserve redemption? Is he even seeking redemption, or simply increased financial security? And, finally, what does it say about America when stories this ugly are considered inspiring?



I'm serious. Now, I don't consider this point a knock on the film at all. It takes an interesting movie to provide any social insights, and I think Brewer's film invites us to consider DJay's conversion from all sides.

Typically, these sorts of Horatio Alger/inspirational/rags-to-riches stories would follow one of two paths - the Little Caeser/Scarface path or the Rocky/Cinderella Man path. In the first case, you'd get the stories of ignominious losers, rejects from society, who through acts of extreme savvy, craft, determination or strength of will rise to the very top of the criminal world. Unfortunately, the very same traits that allowed their fast success brings about their ignoble downfall. Rico in Little Caeser is gunned down in the street; Tony Montana in Scarface plummets off a balcony to his death in his mansion, coked out of his gourd.

In a film like Rocky, the down-and-out underdog with a heart of gold, rises to the occasion and topples (or, in the case of Rocky, nearly topples) a challenger with the odds stacked against him. At the end, his virtue is rewarded.

Hustle & Flow combines these two stories in an interesting way. At the film's opening, DJay barely ekes out a living selling questionable herb around his neighborhood and pimping out the dim-witted Nola (Taryn Manning). The two of them live with DJay's pregnant former ho Shug (Taraji Henson) and another former ho with a baby, Lexus (Paula Jai Parker). He's fed up with living this way, and when he hears that local rap legend Skinny Black (Ludacris, perfectly cast considering his skinny blackdom), he becomes determined to put together a demo to give the superstar.

In order to bring this dream together, DJay will rely on the help of all of those around him, from a former school friend now working as a sound engineer (Anthony Anderson, who's pretty solid now that he's trying out actually acting for once rather than mugging) to a young white wannabe hitmaker (DJ Qualls) to even his various hoes.

And here's where the film gets more interesting. DJay essentially digs himself deeper into his criminal enterprises in order to finance and realize his rap demo. When he needs a better microphone to improve the vocals on the track, he encourages Nola, against her wishes, to have sex wtih the skeezy old man at the pawn shop. When her screaming baby and sass talk interrupts his creative process, he tosses Lexus out into the street with nowhere to go. Later, when encounting someone who dismisses his hard work, he will beat them within an inch of their life.

Additionally, though he admirably yearns to give up a life of crime, we sense that this is more because his criminal career is unprofitable rather than troubling to DJay's conscience. Sure, by the end of the film, he seems to have come to terms with giving up life as a cruel taskmaster dominating his hoes, but he never actually seems to regret any of his cruelty or violence from the past. And even a brief consideration of the songs he has composed - with titles like "Whoop That Trick," "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" and "Keep Hustling" - show where his mind is at. Hustling his music around is just like husting one of his bitches to a john, except the rap music pays better.

I can see the appeal of a film like this. It's like watching the first half of Scarface- the fun half where Tony rises to power by using his wits and murdering a lot of people and doing lots of blow before it all catches up to him - without having to get through the wrenching, downbeat conclusion. But Scarface kind of only makes sense as a morality play - Tony succeeds because he breaks all the rules, but the rules exist so you don't burn yourself out right away and get killed doing stupid crap. He doesn't just break societys code, but the Code of the Street, and for that he must be punished.

The same can't really be said for Hustle & Flow. DJay ends the film in kind of a tight spot, and his various misdeeds do have real-world consequences, but it's clear that his "hustling" has, in the end, paid off for him. So, what are we to take from this story? That everyone has a dream, even lifelong criminals? Sure. That dreams don't come true on their own, you have to fight and scrape every day to make them happen? Okay. That stuff's all great, and the movie expresses these ideas in a heartfelt, sincere manner.

But also, it seems to say that the only thing that matters in the end is getting what you want, no matter who you have to hurt or what about yourself you have to sacrifice along the way.

That this message appeals to Americans, indeed that they find this an inspiring message of hope, is extremely depressing to me. But it's also obvious from even a surface consideration of pop culture. The idea that sins of the past are forgiven by future prosperity, that wrongdoing in the name of upward mobility is something to be proud of, permeates our popular music, our television shows and certainly our magazines and media. I think it kind of means America has failed its own people, that this social-ladder-climbing notion we have about succeeding through having a strong work ethic is really just a fantasy.

100 years ago, when Horatio Alger was writing rags to riches stories, the American Dream was not just attainable, but was self-evident. If you went to the city, if you worked really hard and believed in yourself, you could achieve anything. Of course, that was always bullshit, but so is Hustle & Flow, a world where prostitutes love their pimps and where no one is hooked on smack or crack. The point isn't that the story has to reflect reality, but that the ideas it reflects about "making it" in America have changed in some very telling ways.

I think this concerned me as much as it did because Hustle & Flow is such a well-told bit of storytelling. Of course, credit must go to Brewer's tight script, that really pays attention to how the characters talk and how the music they create together reflects their individual perspectives. He fills the film with cool 70's touches, from the blaxploitation-style opening credits to the grainy film stock to the color palatte, which is a nice touch that helps bring the world of inner-city Memphis to life. And equal credit goes to Terence Howard, an actor who received more attention, I think, for his work in Crash, but who is 100% better here.

He navigates DJay's contradictions so well, that the effect is somewhat bewildering. In some sequences, he evokes genuine menace - his performance is some scenes where he metes out discipline to his hoes reminds me (and Ray, I should mention) of Benicio del Toro in films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He's a large brute who can fly off the handle without warning.

But he can transition, sometimes within a single scene, into a pretty charming, self-effacing guy. At times, his turnabouts can seem oddly cold, almost sociopathic. When Skinny Black offends him, despite being visibly intoxicated and barely cognizant, DJay flies off the handle. He'll sweetly show Nola kindness and talk to her like an equal, before snapping at her or yelling at her to go suck off some stranger. These kinds of emotional shifts become second-nature to a pimp, I suppose, and Howard handles them well.

There's naturally a bit of salesman to DJay (who comments in one scene that, if he can sell Nola's ass on the street every day, he can sell anything), and Howard remembers that being a pimp is really like being a really scummy carnival barker. It's a pretty great performance that highlights my divergent reaction overall to the movie.

I found the film well-made and entertaining, I enjoyed the actual music-making sequences enormously, and liked the songs and the performances and the style of Brewer's direction. And some scenes are genuinely funny as well, particularly Ludacris' satirical take on self-involved Southern rappers. I just worry what Hustle & Flow means about this country, and about our larger sense of community. Are we really ready to accept that any transgression is acceptable provided it is a means for a likable character to obtain a righteous end?