Hustle & Flow: Critic Reviews

We're drawn to the exotic inside portrait of a flyweight urban hustler who knows how to cast a spell.

Craig Brewer's first feature film is a volatile mixture of slickness and sincerity, hard-edged naturalism and sheer show-business hokum.

Howard takes a character that might have been a caricature and makes him real -- sometimes icy, sometimes fiery, sometimes slick, sometimes passionate.

Watching as a pimp, a pothead and a pregnant hooker play and sing in a makeshift bedroom recording studio, and becoming increasingly caught up in their determination and hope, it's impossible not to think that this is a part of the American Dream, too.

A surprisingly charming story that -- in certain sections -- almost crystallizes into the sweetness of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical.

Some will rightly find it corny, absurd, and an insultingly limited presentation of options for the most disenfranchised African-Americans: I'm still waiting for the movie fantasy about the pimp who wants to get his GED.

There's something wrong with Hustle. A bad aftertaste, and not just the dry grit of Memphis dust, but something meaner. A feeling that Brewer's sensibility is way off.

Unlikely as this may sound, Hustle & Flow -- about a low-down Memphis pimp who wants to be a rapper -- is the feel-good movie of the summer.

This is Howard's show. His DJay is intense, with blue sky dreams other than pimping and living in Memphis.

A sort of Rocky for ambitious street hustlers, Hustle & Flow traffics in the risky business of making prostitution seem not quite as bad as the hip-hop world, and it conjures a sticky mix of urban grit and Hollywood schmaltz.

When Brewer, Howard, and Ludacris stick to the bitter texture of South Memphis failure and success they produce a modest regional portrait that could become a classic of its kind.

Terrence Howard modulates Djay with great love and consideration for the character. He never cheapens him, or condescends. He builds him inside-out.

Happily for all involved, it's still pretty good, with a leading performance by Terrence Howard that is that good.

Hustle & Flow is a weird fusion of blaxploitation and American indie, built on a template of old-style, follow-your-dream Hollywood drama. But it works -- sometimes magnificently.

The film's supporting characters are as rich as the lead, each one of them chasing an unlikely dream.

Hustle & Flow is a celebration of crude aspirations, of raw art, of raunch and street and yearning and, beneath it all, family values.

Hustle & Flow uses its street smarts to show that dreams come in all shapes and sizes and that their realization sometimes is preceded by nightmares.

Exhibits an undeniable confidence that permeates its every aspect.

Hustle & Flow promises gritty street drama but delivers Pretty Woman with crunk instead of Roxette.

The movie is too corny to be edgy, and too hard-core to be uplifting.

It's all good. The story, the characters, the music, acting.

While the plot avoids the most obvious happy-ending cliches, it stays unnecessarily close to the pimps 'n hos mythology of crunk hits, and that's particularly discomfiting if you happen to believe that women are people, too.

Hustle & Flow suspends you in its spell of mood, of feeling, of climate. It's a pop picture that finds its richness in peeling down to the essentials of good storytelling.

It celebrates art, hope, and dreams, and you don't have to like hip-hop to appreciate the message or the way in which it is delivered.

Screenwriter-director Brewer transcends his generic story, laying out his beat from each character's heart. We come to know their inner fears and demons, including those of some particularly well-drawn supporting characters.