20 years ago in Park City, Utah, I went totally nuts for Craig Brewer‘s Hustle & Flow. And so did the Sundancers who caught it there. I watched it again last night and it still works beautifully in its own gritty-ass way, but guess what? If Hustle & Flow hadn’t happened in ’05 and ’06, it couldn’t be made fresh today.

One, it presents too much of a downmarket, even denigrating portrait of a poor African American community (it’s set in Memphis) — not positive enough in terms of cultural self-image. Two, even as a transformational moth-into-a-hiphop-butterfly story, Hustle & Flow dwells too much on the ugly, skanky aspects of pimping and whoring and dope-dealing. And three, throughout most of the film Terrence Howard‘s DJay is a violent, sexist, low-life pimp, and in today’s political atmosphere such characters are too mongrelish and distastetul, and guys like DJay are certainly anathema to the #MeToo community.

Howard, 35 in ’04, initially didn’t want to play DJay because of the lower-depths factor, but he eventually changed his mind because it’s basically a film about transcendence through the power of music.

Taraji P. Henson, 54, is too old these days to play Shug, but if she were to somehow magically de-age to 34 she still wouldn’t play such a character — not in today’s climate. Nor would a magically younger Taryn Manning (now 47) play Nola, a bargain-basement prostitute who services tricks in their cars. Neither of them would touch a Hustle & Flow-like film with a ten-foot pole todqy.

Hustle & Flow is a fable that sells ideas about life and creativity that may not be realistic, but people sure as hell want to believe them…I know that much. We’ve all got pain in our hearts and poetry in our souls, and it’s never too late to make your move, etc,

To say you’ve “seen this kind of film before” means nothing. The question must always be, “How well was it made, and how much did you care?”

It’s worth it alone for Howard’s D-Jay, a flawed, at times brutally insensitive guy in a classic do-or-die struggle to make it as a rap artist.

Anthony Anderson (now 54) is almost as good as Howard. Henson, Manning, DJ Qualls and Ludacris make it play true and steady and right as rain.

Every frame of this movie says, “You know what we’re doing…this guy wants to climb out of his crappy situation and maybe we’re gonna show him do that…but we’re gonna do it in a way that feels right to us.”

And once D-Jay hooks up with Anderson and Qualls and starts to put together a sound and record a few tracks, Hustle & Flow is off the ground and pretty much stays there, suspended.

Forget the funky backdrops and gritty-ass particulars — is there anyone out there who can’t relate to a character who feels stuck in a tired groove and wants to do more with his/her life? Is there anything more commonly understood?

Whatever you might expect to feel about D-Jay, he is, by the force of Howard’s acting and Brewer’s behind-the-camera input, utterly real and believable, and even with his anger and brutality you can’t help but root for him. And, for that matter, the film.