This is a great movie, it should win a ton of awards, and I hope they make a billion dollars. Go see it.

Rating: 9/10 (29 August 2005)

This is the story of DJay, a pimp and drug dealer. (Played by the versatile Terrence Dashon Howard.) This movie doesn't glorify his life; far from it. His whores are worn out and unglamorous, and his drug trade brings him no prosperity.
One day, on a drug delivery to a regular customer, DJay discovers that a local rapper named Skinny Black who made the national scene is coming back to the old neighborhood to celebrate the fourth of July. Skinny Black is played by Ludicrous.
DJay remembers Skinny Black's humble beginnings and his own days as an amateur deejay and rapper. DJay believes that if Skinny can make out of Memphis, he can too. And so the quest begins. DJay turns his attention to making a rap recording that Skinny Black will hear and thus get the break that will take him off the streets.
DJay is aided in this endeavor by an old acquaintance named Key (Anthony Anderson, who does some nice, understated work here) who works as an audio technician, recording high school concerts and court depositions. Key makes a living at what he does, after a fashion (just like DJay), but his middle-class lifestyle is no more satisfying to him than DJay's pimping is to DJay. They are joined by Shelby, a guy who knows a little about audio production and supports himself with a job filling vending machines.
There are a few subplots involving DJay and his whores. One works as an exotic dancer, another is too pregnant to turn tricks, and the third rides around in D-Jay's beat up old car tricking at $20 a pop. Shug, the mother, just may be the love of DJay's life if he could afford such a luxury. She is the most supportive of DJay and his schemes and even helps lay down a track for the recording.
In the course of this movie, DJay actually becomes an Everyman of sorts. I know nothing at all about rap and care for it even less, but I certainly have felt the same way DJay, Shelby and the others feel. They want to rise above their station for a while. They want a moment when someone looks at them and doesn't see a pimp, a whore, a vending machine filler or the guy who pushes buttons on a tape recorder.
They want to be seen, for one moment, as artists. As someone who has done something bigger with their lives than they have ever done before. And in this struggle, DJay  pimp, thief, drug dealer, thug, loser  becomes heroic and even noble.
I can't tell you exactly when it happened, but there was a moment in the movie I started to get restless. Not because I didn't like it, or that I was bored, but I actively wanted the same thing that DJay wanted. My wife asked me if I was all right, and I told her that the characters were getting under my skin. I was itching for DJay to win.
Hustle And Flow is a well-written, well-acted movie. I was sure that I would be able to predict the ending, but I was wrong. It is entertaining, and fun (sort of) and tragic and triumphant in unexpected ways. And it's got a killer score.