I have to believe that Hustle & Flow, which was picked up by Paramount Classics at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, was subjected to some heavy meddling on the way to mainstream theaters. I can’t remember another movie that started out so confidently, so utterly sure of its own swagger, and then limped so erratically to its end. What begins as a conflicted look at the squalid life of a Memphis pimp and aspiring rapper (a riveting Terrence Howard) veers into something more like a rougher-edged 8 Mile.
