Hustle & Flow: Widescreen Edition DVD Review

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Title: Hustle & Flow: Widescreen Edition

Region: One

Genre: Drama

Stars: Terrence Howard, Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning, Taraji P. Henson, Paula Jai Parker, Elise Neal, D.J. Qualls, Ludacris, and Isaac Hayes

Writer: Craig Brewer

Director: Craig Brewer

Feature length: 115 minutes

Extras: Director’s Commentary, Featurettes, Promotional Spots, Previews

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Closed Captions and Subtitles

Packaging: Amaray Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 19

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2005/DVD Release: 2006

Theatrical Distributor: Paramount Classics

Home Video Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, “Hustle & Flow” built a strong momentum through positive word of mouth and is now available on DVD-Video through Paramount Home Entertainment. The film, which took four years to finance, was produced by John Singleton and written and directed by Craig Brewer, who wrote the story in part as an analogy to his own struggles with becoming a successful filmmaker in Memphis Tennessee. The film’s protagonist however is not an aspiring filmmaker, but a small time drug dealer and pimp with a midlife crisis. Played with great intensity and passion by Terrence Howard, the character of DJay sees that a famous rapper (Ludacris) who started out in their neighborhood is coming back to town for a rare visit. Unfortunately DJay doesn’t know him personally, but he sees the opportunity to meet him as his big break to realize his own dream of becoming a rap artist. With the help of an old friend (Anthony Anderson) and the support of his prostitutes, one of which is pregnant with their child (Taraji Henson) and the other a young blond woman, with low self-confidence, DJay attempts to realize his dream and inspires those working with him in the process.

What I liked about “Hustle & Flow” is that despite the initial exploitive aspects of the lead character, the film humanizes DJay enough that we actually not only care about him, but we are on his side. Yet at the same time the film never ever attempts to create a glorified image of street hustlers and the film maintains a gritty feel throughout. The entire cast is strong and the film is quite compelling. Is this a film I could watch over and over again? No, but I think it is a film that I can safely recommend to almost anyone as worth seeing because it has a ring of truth about it and ultimately the strength of the characters and their humanity therein is what makes “Hustle & Flow” very refreshing, entertaining, and arguably one of the best interpedently produced feature films of 2005.

Paramount Home Entertainment’s DVD edition maintains the film’s gritty look, which transfers quite well to DVD. “Hustle & Flow” feels real even if it is just a story about a man chasing a dream and how a woman’s support can ultimately make the difference between success and failure. If we are lucky enough in life, we will all find life partners with whom we can share our hopes, dreams, successes, fears, anxieties, and failures and remain true and become stronger mutually for it. This is the story of one man’s journey, but if you strip away the artifacts and follow the premise at it’s roots, I think this is the story of how we all as men and women strive for a chance to fulfill a dream and leave something positive of ourselves behind for all to share. So please do not let the film’s setting, character vocations, or even music turn you away. “Hustle & Flow” is ultimately naturalistic human drama that crosses over the boundaries of race and sex to reach at the common heart of humanity.

In addition to the appropriately gritty anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) presentation, “Hustle & Flow features a terrific English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. I am not really into rap, but there is a gut feeling we all share that tells us if something is good or not regardless if it is or is not suited to our particular tastes. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York I knew a lot of people that were into old school rap, but even though alternative rock was not necessarily something these people were into, they had songs they liked by bands whose musical genres were seemingly the polar opposite of what they were into. So my point is while I’m not into rap, I can say without hesitation that the music composed for the film is good and truly serves to forward the film on many levels rather than just serving as a story prop or sales too and in addition you don’t have to be into something to recognize it’s merits either. An English Dolby Surround Soundtrack as well as English Closed Captions for the hearing impaired and English Subtitles are encoded onto the DVD as options too.

Extra value materials on this disc include a feature length audio commentary with Writer and Director Craig Brewer, a behind-the-scenes making of featurette (27:19), a featurette detailing the film’s lengthy struggle to get funded and green lit (14:39), a featurette detailing the Memphis sound and the music for the film (13:40), footage from the Memphis premiere (4:53), and a reel of promotional spots (3:37) as well as a reel of previews (9:50) for “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’”, “Four Brothers”, “The Bad News Bears”, and “The Honeymooners.” The main menu is animated while the subsequent menus are interactive still frames that are easy to navigate.

“Hustle & Flow: Widescreen Edition” is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment and is well worth checking out.

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