HUSTLE & FLOW

Last night I saw Hustle & Flow. It was really great; very entertaining. Terrence Howard, whom I first noticed from beyond the background earlier this summer in Crash (my favorite film of the year so far) was great as a Memphis pimp with dreams of something bigger and better. I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is of the stereotypes of 1) Memphis, 2) rappers, 3) pimps or 4) black people, but this was definitely an affecting story. I think none of those "accuracies" matter much anyway, because even if stereotypes are more often true than not, there is still a "not." There are always anomalies; exceptions that break the rules. And why can't there be a witty poor pimp who has the stuff and the werewithall to make it as a rapper? That's not to say that happens in the film, or doesn't, but it's a trajectory established early on.

The acting was fantastic. Beginning with Howard, who really came out of nowhere and has been turning in stellar work since Ray, though I can't remember seeing him ever before to say his previous stuff was not stellar. I love when a great actor emerges from those character roles that seem to blend in with the background so much you can't make out any distinctive features. At first, he mumbles a little trying to get down that Memphis twang (most noticable when he say the word "man") but after you acclimate yourself to that accent, just like reading a book written in dialect, you no longer have any trouble hearing what he is saying. He's best when the camera is just watching him doing nothing, or reacting, or listening to something. He's not overacting, but it is fascinating watching someone take in a sound or a word or absolutely nothing, or watching someone think.

Anthony Anderson is equally good (surprising?) as the more intelligent, more successful, wealthier, high school friend of Howard's. He plays what is looked down on in that geographical and cultural place as "white." I think that's a horrible stigma to pin on someone who is successful and clean (as in no drugs) and upstanding, for I think it's patently untrue. But we can discuss the element of poor whites another time. He bears the guilt of someone who made it out of his pre-destined slums and he comes back to help achieve the dream of someone he once knew.

Ludacris, who doesn't really appear until the last third of the film, continually surprises me. Like Howard, he was in Crash and was phenomenal in both. The words written for Ludacris and Howard in their long scenes together are the type that are profound and intelligent yet sound perfectly right coming out of the mouths of these characters. I suppose it's the inner human, the innateness in all of us, our guts speaking through our mouths that comes across; that everyone is capable of such thoughts and words and no one is unworthy of showing it.

These characters are on their face, one-dimensional. They're caricatures before the house lights dim and the reel begins, but once they do and it does, they are full people, with thoughts and dreams and successes and failures. They're like you and me, but with different standards and different hurdles and different people in and out of their lives. We all achieve something in our lives, or seek to, and even if we only get so far as halfway on the course before something goes wrong or crashes down around us, we tried.

This film was so alive and so meaningful, and the music is good. The acting is really what makes this movie great, for in lesser actors' hands these truly great words would ring hollow and fake.