What are the first things that come to mind when some one mentions the word Hustle? Money; how are you going to earn it, where can you get it from without it being illegal.
For some, we hustle to get to work for 5.15 an hour and others hustle to make their dreams come true.
However Terrence Dashon Howard playing as Djay in Hustle and Flow was a pimp that was trying to make it in the music business. Djay ran into his old friend Key, played by Anthony Anderson, a sound engineer who always wanted to make it in the music business as well.
The two team up and lay down a few tracks, so that rapper Skinny Black played by Ludacris can listen and put in a word or to with his producer for Djay.
When DJay speaks, in the smokiest of smoky drawls, the words come out slowly, sliding into each other, the cadences fused in a lyrical back-porch whisper — a barely perceptible form of intimidation. Pushing 40, he’s a veteran of the streets, one who’s grown weary and a bit numb hawking his girls out of cars, using his casual gift for words to keep them in line.
He may be an exploiter, yet he is not, by nature, a cruel man: Howard plays him with the hidden, bone-deep anxiety of someone who has spent his life coasting on outlaw instinct.
Throughout the movie D-Jay wrestles with himself on whether or not he has the talent to make it as a rapper or if being a pimp and small time drug dealer is his destiny. Although this movie is designed to be ghetto movie it has a deeper storyline than most movies of its kind. The main characters all have inner struggles that they are dealing with and they all depend on each other to make the necessary changes in their lives.
Anyone out there who has tried to make it as a rapper and have been faced with various obstacles in life can relate to this movie. Too often aspiring rappers fall by the wayside and end up dealing drugs or maybe something even worse because they didn?t have the patience to wait out the bad times to enjoy the fruits of their hard work.
The ratings for this particular movie were excellent. I would give it two thumbs up in my book because I love gangster movies with a lot of drama. Hustle and Flow was not only a drama but it also had a little bit of comic relief so it would not seem so serious.