It Came From the South

The lyrics –“You know it’s hard out here for a pimp/ When he’s gotta get the money for the rent”–don’t quite have the lilt of “Some day my prince will come.” And the rapper who composed that verse is no Snow White. DJay is a black man, a Memphis, Tenn., dope dealer and peddler of prostitutes’ flesh. But his yearning has the same intensity as any Disney heroine’s. For DJay has a mission: he wants to make a hit record. He dares to dream the pimpossible dream.

DJay (Terrence Howard) is the sort-of hero of Hustle & Flow, a hip-hop Star Is Born, a rappin’ Rocky–and, in its own right, a parable of belief against all odds. At this year’s Sundance festival, the movie, made for $3.5 million, copped critics’ raves, the Audience Award and, from Paramount Classics/MTV Films, an astounding purchase price of $16 million, which included a $7 million deal for other films with co-producer John Singleton.

For writer-director Craig Brewer, 33, the film’s July 13 release is the culmination of a five-year odyssey of slammed doors, we’ll-call-yous and try-it-our-ways. Cast a rap star in the lead role, not a journeyman actor with zero marquee wattage. Make it in Los Angeles, not in your hometown. And, the Hollywood whisper went, could you please not be a white guy? Taylor Hackford had run up against similar prejudices in the 15 years it took him to make Ray. As Brewer recalls, “I’m sitting there sweating bullets, thinking, No one is buying this movie about Ray Charles. Why would they buy my movie about a pimp?”

But it’s not just striving toughs–and tyro directors–who have dreams. Producers can catch the fever too. Stephanie Allain was a Columbia Pictures executive in 1990 when she signed Singleton, then just 22, to make Boyz n the Hood, which established the urban drama as a viable genre. When Allain could find no studio to say yes to Brewer’s script, she sold her house and invested in the project. Then she alerted Singleton. “He loved it,” says Brewer, “He said, ‘All you need is me to go into the room with you.'” Still no takers. So Singleton put his house up for collateral and financed the movie (for $3.5 million). Hustle & Flow hadn’t been made, but it was already making news on the entertainment and real estate pages.

Brewer got to film it in Memphis, with its rich music tradition that nurtured styles from Sun Records rockabilly (Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis) to Stax soul (Isaac Hayes, who has a small role here, and Otis Redding). “I wasn’t making a black movie,” Brewer insists. “I was making a Memphis movie. It’s my love letter to Memphis.”

What is there in Hustle & Flow to fall in love with? Start with Howard, who has a busy résumé, with the UPN series Sparks and the films Dead Presidents and Crash, but here explodes with coiled energy, intelligence and sexuality. To the simple scheme of DJay’s redemption, he lends nuance and magnetic power. Ta-da! A star is born.

Beyond Howard’s performance is the film’s beguiling fantasy of community. DJay connects with his old friend Key (Anthony Anderson), who sets up a home recording studio. One of DJay’s whores sings the chorus on her boss’s song; another turns tricks to raise money for sound equipment. The track is engineered by a geeky white guy (DJ Qualls). When he’s dismissed as a doofus white, Key replies, “No, he’s just light-skinned”–which must be how Brewer, who has black and white friends from all strata of Memphis society, sees himself.

The secret of Hustle & Flow’s appeal is that it’s a conventional dream movie with a realistic surface–a marshmallow dipped in grit. With its muddy color palette, the film looks as if it has been painted on velvet. But the plot is pure wish fulfillment. DJay gets transformed from no-gooder to go-getter by beautiful music (when he’s moved to tears by a church choir). Then there’s the Rocky factor. That movie, about a bum turned hero, was a happy pill after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. Brewer sees his film as a return to workaday humanity. “We’re in a time of tremendous problems in the world, and we’ve needed to escape to fantasy,” he says. “Maybe now we’re coming to a time where we need more working-class heroes.”

A Sundance sensation doesn’t always go on to wow ’em at the plexes. For every Blair Witch Project (bought at Park City in 1999 for $1 million; earned $140.5 million) there are a dozen like Happy, Texas (bought the same year for $10 million; earned $1.9 million). In a film summer dominated by comic-book heroes and special effects, it’s a long shot for an underdog to prove itself top dog.

Still, Hustle & Flow wins a critic’s and an audience’s rooting interest. It boasts a seductive lead performance and the best ensemble cast since Ray. It has a palpable sense of place; every frame reveals the heat and heart of Memphis. The film may be more like Rocky the club fighter than Rocky the box-office champ, but as people keep saying here, “Everybody gotta have a dream.” One would be that the Hollywood factory starts financing movies like this–handmade and homegrown. –Reported by Desa Philadelphia/Los Angeles