Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our man in Chi-town (home of the world's most evil airport, by the way) and his views on HUSTLE & FLOW. This film is as good as anything you'll see this year. This is drama at its best, acting at its most touching and damn does this flick move. This one really blew me out of the water, much like it did the audiences at Sundace. Who woulda thought a flick co-starring both Anthony Anderson and DJ Qualls would be one of the best films of the year? How the fuck does that happen? Bizarre... Anyway, here's Capone and I couldn't agree more with his view of the flick. Enjoy!
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here to talk up one of Chicago's finest, Terrence Howard, who is on a major winning streak with films like Crash and his latest.
You have never seen a film like Hustle & Flow. There's nothing flashy about it, no special effects to make your eyes pop out of your head, no chases or martial arts to get excited about. The question should be, can you handle a film like Hustle & Flow? I ask this not because the movie has excessive sex or violence that would make you shy away from seeing it. I ask because I'm not sure there are people out there among you who can handle a film as good as Hustle & Flow, a film that fulfilled a life's goal for me: to learn how hard it is being a Memphis pimp with a dream.
As if you need any more convincing, Hustle & Flow, from newbie writer-director Craig Brewer (this is his second feature), won the Audience Choice Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It's a bold and remarkable film that features what I'm sure will be one of the year's finest performances from Terrence Howard as the small-time pimp DJay. D doesn't wear the brightly colored clothes and drive a flashy car, because he's not a cartoon pimp. His car doesn't even have air conditioning because he's barely making ends meet. He has a small squadron of three women (one of whom is out of the game temporarily due to being with child, father unknown), who all live together in a tiny house in a Memphis ghetto. When DJay runs into an old high school buddy named Key (Anthony Anderson), things start to change in D's life. Key is a recording engineer, who basically just points a microphone and balances the levels for such low-profile gigs as church recording sessions and legal depositions. What Key wants to be is a music producer, and it just so happens that DJay has a few stories to tell in the form of some blazing rap songs.
The pair, along with a skinny white kid named Shelby (DJ Qualls), set up a makeshift, barely functional recording studio in D's already crowded, un-air conditioned house. Watching these three piece together these recordings is a something to behold. The pregnant Shug (Taraji Henson, in a remarkable performance) is capable enough as a singer to belt out some bluesy hooks on the tracks, while DJay's white ho Nola (Taryn Manning, also surprisingly strong here) runs the fan and serves as inspiration for many of D's fantastic life-as-a-broke-ass-pimp raps. About half of this film's authenticity comes from the power of these songs, which would fit in quite nicely on any hip-hop radio station today. There's an honesty to the lyrics that is refreshing. DJay isn't bragging about his pimpin' exploits; he's griping about barely having enough cash for the rent and gas. More than anything, D wants out of the game, and these demo recordings are clearly his last shot at making that happen.
As good as the tunes are, the movie would ultimately fail were it not for my new favorite actor, Chicago's own Terrence Howard. Between this film, Crash, (he was the director whose wife was molested during a traffic stop), his supporting role in Ray, and a nice turn in HBO's Lackawanna Blues, this is clearly a good time to be a fan of Howard's abilities to disappear into a character. And the guy has four more films coming out before the end of the year. In Hustle & Flow, Howard mutates from greasy scum of the earn turning out young women to sympathetic artist, whose struggle to be heard seems as important to us as it is to him. He's nothing short of remarkable. There are as many "good guy" scenes as "bad guy" scenes for DJay, and it torments you that you can't make up your mind whether he's a hero or villain. A scene in which he finds a way to include the talentless Nola in the recording sessions (by blessing a new microphone with a kiss) is put side by side with one where D has to use her body as payment for the expensive device.
In addition to Howard and Anderson tearing up the screen, Hustle & Flow has a fantastic set of supporting performances from Isaac Hayes as a club owner; Elise Neal as Anderson's nervous wife; and Paula Jai Parker as D's third ho, who gets tossed out of the house on her ass for being sassy and disrespectful in one of the film's scariest scenes. Howard also re-teams with his Crash co-star, rapper Ludacris, playing Skinny Black, Memphis-born rap star who left the city as soon as he became famous. The sequence is which DJay talks up the visiting Skinny in an attempt to slip him his demo tape is among the film's finest. In the same way I campaigned to get family and friends to go see Boogie Nights many years ago because I knew it was the calling card of a major talent, so I will beg and plead with all brave souls to check out Hustle & Flow, as powerful breakthrough film as I'm likely to see this year.
Capone
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