Great performance in the lead but the material isn't all that it needs to be and slips away totally at the end (minor spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2005)

DJay is a smalltime pimp, selling his one or two worn girls out of his battered Cadillac or seedy strip-joints. However time has worn his enthusiasm for the game and he longs for more. Meeting up with an old classmate who has recording experience, DJay sees the opportunity to take his experience and use it to make his dreams come true through hip-hop. His aspirations cannot get him away from the reality of his situation but the impending visit of local rapper-made-good Skinny Black could be the break he needs.
It is not possible to talk about this film without focusing on the person that really puts it all on his back and carries it from start to finish  Terrence Howard. Never someone who has impressed me, Howard did well in a small role in Crash and has improved again to produce a convincing central performance here. DJay could have been a big cliché played by a rapper that deeply enjoys the credibility of the pimp role but in Howard's hands the role is much closer to being a real person. He doesn't enjoy the pimp life so much as convincingly mire himself in it  his eyes are filled with an anger and pain that say more about the person than a thousand Jay-Z songs ever will. His character is key to the film and it is Howard that makes this part work.
The rest of the film is more or less worthy of him but loses its way right at the end. For the majority we are allowed to act as witnesses without sides in his story  we aren't pushed to see him as a good man or a bad man, nor to allow the fact he might be "good deep down" to excuse his violent exploitation of women. It is a fine line but the film balances it well. This success helps to make the plot more interesting considering that it is only ever a note away from being just one big "making it out the hood" movie. The scenes of hip-hop hope are a bit cheesy but they are well balanced out by the sleazy and unglamorous reality of the lifestyle. It could have been deeper and more about the characters but it is still interesting enough to do well  up to a point.
Unfortunately this point is about 20 minutes before the end of the film when suddenly Brewer abandons his approach and falls back on cliché, easy options and, worst of all, an optimistic ending that sees him holding DJay up in a way that he had mostly manage to avoid doing. The whole end flies in the face of what had gone before and throws off the balancing act it had done up till that point. It is a shame because it should have been more downbeat and interesting but instead it takes the line of least resistance. It may have been Brewer but, in his defence, it does smell slightly like the work of a studio executive or an American test audience. It still just about works although not even Howard can cover the disappointing in the final act.
The rest of the cast do well to help him. Usually Anderson is enough to make me avoid a film but, as with the most recent series of The Shield, he shows that he can act and has a solid serious side. He is good and surprisingly unshowy support for Howard. Manning is good as Nola but again the end of the film sees her betrayed and asked to be something she is not. The vulnerable and pregnant Shug is really well delivered by Henson; her character may be simple on paper but she does well to be really quite touching and sympathetic. Parker has a black cliché in her finger-clicking, swearing performance but she is good enough to do the job without dragging the rest down a notch. Ludicrous (who also impressed me in Crash) is pretty close to his rapping personae in an easy role but he deserves credit for taking a beating on screen and being convincing in his one role. Hayes is a bit distracting in such a small role but again is a nice addition.
Overall this is a pretty good film that pulls off the balancing act and avoids judgement for the majority, helped in no small way by a very strong turn from Howard. However at the end it undoes all this god work with an ending that is so easy and pat that I genuinely doubted it had been delivered by the same person who had written and directed the first two-thirds. Close to cliché and corn at times but it mostly mixes them well and the film is worth seeing.