Menace II Society

"Hustle & Flow" (2005): Writer-director Craig Brewer draws inspiration from such films as "Super Fly," "The Harder They Come," "Menace II Society" and "On the Waterfront," while at the same time defying genre conventions in this tale of a low-level pimp suffering a midlife crisis ... morewho decides he wants to be a rapper. Just when you think the film can't get any better, it does, with a career-defining performance by Terrence Howard and a well-crafted script. "Hustle & Flow" is the movie "8 Mile" wishes it was, emerging as the offspring of '70s blaxploitation and the '90s 'hood film, into a unique portrait of a morally corrupt antihero searching for redemption. (Paramount Classics)