Hip hop hooray— I rather liked it!
REMEMBER 8 Mile, the movie in which Eminem played Rabbit, a factory worker from Detroit, who wanted to be a hip-hop rapper and go hippety-hoppety to the top of the charts? Well, Hustle & Flow is 8 Mile for disillusioned grown-ups. It’s morally indefensible for the way it aggrandises pimping, drug-pushing, violence and hip-hop, and presents an insultingly circumscribed set of options for African-Americans — and the women they love or exploit. Despite all that, I rather liked it. Writer- director Craig Brewer tries to make us empathise with Memphis hustler DJay (Terrence Howard), a drug-pushing, black pimp who dreams of being a rapper. So he records his raps — or ‘flow’ — with the vocal and financial assistance of his two whores (Taraji P. Henson and Taryn Manning) and two technically minded friends (chubby Anthony Anderson and lanky D.J. Qualls). He hopes the tape will impress home- coming, successful rapper Skinny Black (Ludacris), whom DJay claims to have known in his youth. It’s hard to know if DJay’s wonderfully moronic raps are meant to be ironic. They are full of sexism (‘Stomp That Ho’ and ‘Whoop That Trick’) and aggressive self-pity (‘It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp’). Yet not one of the characters, male or female, black or white, seems to notice, let alone be offended. That’s 21st century pop culture for you. But Howard builds a surprisingly endearing character out of DJay, who behind his macho facade is essentially a pathetic loser. The film portrays DJay’s world of moral, cultural and financial poverty in such a realistic, affectionate fashion that his desperation to escape has undeniable power. Where 8 Mile felt manufactured by Hollywood for profit, Hustle & Flow seems to have been made with genuine understanding for its characters. The final, beautifully acted, drug-andalcoholconfrontation between DJay and the homecoming gangsta rapper he mistakenly heroworships departs from the Hollywood formula and is weirdly moving in its nightmarish inevitability. This isn’t a movie that I expected to like, even half an hour in, but its energy and fearlessness finally won me over.