The home-studio recording sequences in Hustle & Flow are funky, rowdy, and indelible. Brewer gives us the pleasure of watching characters create music from the ground up.

While never sacrificing any of the hard-knock authenticity and specificity of his characters and their milieu, Brewer has crafted a deeply felt film.

It celebrates art, hope, and dreams, and you don't have to like hip-hop to appreciate the message or the way in which it is delivered.

Explosive entertainment.

Ends with a burst of movie-ish mayhem, and then a burst of sentiment, but when Brewer, Howard, and Ludacris stick to the bitter texture of South Memphis failure and success they produce a modest regional portrait that could become a classic of its kind.