Reviewed - Hustle & Flow: There is an annual feeding frenzy at the Sundance Film Festival to discover new talent, with rival studios feverishly outbidding each other to snap up low-budget movies that might turn an easy profit. Months later, in the cold light of day, some of these discoveries can look terribly ordinary. A case in point is Hustle & Flow, which Paramount acquired for $9 million at Sundance this year.
A raps-to-riches tale that pales compared with 8 Mile, the movie takes an idealised view of its protagonist, DJay (Terrence Howard), a Memphis pimp and drug dealer with ambitions of finding rap stardom. The film desperately wants us to care for DJay and to share his dream, while at the same time casually noting his misogynistic behaviour.
DJay shares a house with three women. One is a stripper he throws out on to the street with her young son. Another is a prostitute whose sexual favours he offers to a salesman in exchange for a studio-quality microphone to record his opus. The third is a heavily pregnant prostitute who serves her purpose when DJay uses her soulful singing voice on his demo.
"It's hard out there for a pimp," he self-pityingly raps at the opening of one song, which has as its working titles, Beat That Bitch and Stomp That Ho. Meanwhile, the movie sneers at the bourgeois, conservative life and wife of DJay's old school friend, who has a job, goes to church and lives in a comfortable house.
The sole redeeming feature of this drab-looking, self-indulgently over-extended effort is the commanding presence of Howard (from Crash and Ray) in the central role.
