2K Replay: HUSTLE & FLOW

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Choice Summer Movie” at the Teen Choice Awards. It lost to Wedding Crashers.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): The scene where Taraji P. Henson gives a chain to Terrance Howard and the scene where Terrance Howard is hanging out with Ludacris at Isaac Hayes’ bar.

• Best Song: “I Choose You” by Willie Hutch.

• Best Merch: A “Hustle & Flow Movie…US Promo Hand Towel” for $8.00. I like that the seller wrote this hand towel is “Mega-Rare” in the description. It’s also reassuring the listing specifies that the hand towel was never used.

• Director Grade: Hustle & Flow was directed by Craig Brewer.
Great Movies: N/A
Good Movies: Black Snake Moan, Dolemite Is My Name
OK Movies: Hustle & Flow
Bad Movies: Coming 2 America
Unseen By Me: The Poor & Hungry, Footloose (2011)
Overall Grade: B-

• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Get Rich or Die Tryin’

• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Coach Carter, In the Mix, Rize

• Never Talk to Strangers or Hustle & Flow? Never Talk to Strangers

• Mall Movie? It’s an MTV Films movie about rap artists which are both mall-friendly so yes.

• Only in 2005: Me thinking “Whoop That Trick” and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” were good songs.

• Scene Stealer (tie): Taraji P. Henson and Ludacris.

• I Miss (tie): MTV Films and John Singleton, who co-produced the movie.

• I Don’t Miss: The Taryn Manning and DJ Qualls characters. The actors perform them just fine, but those characters are rough.

• 2005 Crush: Taraji P. Henson.

• 2025 Crush: Elise Neal.

• What I Thought in 2005: I thought Hustle & Flow was good and bought the DVD after seeing it in theaters. I liked the music and was really impressed with Terrance Howard, who was having a great 2005 on screen between this and Crash (which is a bad movie, but he’s not the problem). Hustle & Flow made me excited to see what Craig Brewer was going to make next.

• What I Think in 2025: This one didn’t hold up for me. I found it pretty corny on this viewing. I think part of the issue is that John Carney (Once, Begin Again, Sing Street, Flora and Son) has done so many movies with this same “let’s get a band together and make music” conceit that it makes any example/variation of it (even ones that preceded his films) sort of parody at this point. The Terrance Howard performance is still very solid and there’s a good scene here and there but there’s way more moments that make me wanna roll my eyes or cringe. It’s a product of its time, not an all-timer.