Hustle & Flow (R, 2005)

DJay (Terrence Howard) is a Memphis pimp who is imaging a world beyond his own. When DJay gets hold of an old Casio keyboard, he's inspired to make music, specifically, to express himself through hip-hop. And so he tries to make a demo tape, with the help of sound engineer Key (Anthony Anderson) and church pianist/vending machine stocker Shelby (DJ Qualls), who brings his beat machine. They spend hours and hours putting together a couple of tracks, "Whoop That Trick" and "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." DJay delivers his tape to a rap artist, Skinny Black (Ludacris), when he comes by a local bar (the owner played by Isaac Hayes) one evening. Resilient in his ignorance, posing like a proud, tough guy, he can't escape the fact that he has a sense of history and context.

Perceptive and provocative, HUSTLE & FLOW focuses on the limits and excesses of a DJay. Even as he's imagining a world beyond his own, however, DJay's vision is limited by immediate needs. Women, he admits to his new girl, Nola (Taryn Manning), are like men, not dogs, with aspirations and needs. Craig Brewer's first film doesn't hold back from showing DJay's gritty side: he's selfish, short-sighted, and angry, selling dirt-weed and living in a one-floor shack with his girls; in addition to Nola, the household includes lapdancer Lexus (Paula Jai Parker), her young son, and the very pregnant Shug (Taraji P. Henson).

The women are caught up in stereotypical roles, arguing with or supporting their man, who in turn sells their bodies to any creep with $20. But the actors bring depth, detail, and poetry to these character outlines. When Shug describes a recent nightmare (in which she gives birth to a dog, then finds herself "breastfeeding a big old catfish"), she thinks it through and concludes it's because of her fear of the unknown, a fear afflicting everyone in the house.