Sorry, I'm too white to come up with a clever intro: "Hustle & Flow"

Actually, my wife is even whiter. How white is she? We watched this movie -- in which everyone speaks English, mind you -- with subtitles. I half expected Barbara Billingsley to show up and offer to help. "Oh stewardess, I speak jive ... "

This was the only Best Actor-nominated performance I hadn't seen, and we squeezed it in last night, just before the Oscars. Of course, Terrence Howard still is a bit of a longshot, probably because some older Academy voters think he's another of Ron Howard's brothers. (I'm still miffed that Clint Howard, prolific bit player in "Austin Powers," "Tango & Cash" and other movies hasn't gotten his due.)

I had seen Terrence Howard in "Crash," and he might have been the best of that big ensemble. (Michael Pena was pretty good, too. Sorry, Matt Dillon.) I loved the way Howard played a man trying to be decent while feeling powerless and generally neutered, and he could have easily been nominated for Best Supporting Actor as well.

His "Crash" turn is all the more impressive considering "Hustle & Flow," in which Howard plays DJay, a middle-aged Memphis pimp who wants to be a rapper. The movie opens with him philosophizing a bit, but in reality DJay is just getting by until he runs into a guy from high school who now has some recording equipment. Between that and the imminent return of a Memphis native who became a rap star, DJay hopes he can channel his anger into song and then fame.

It's a different twist, the pimp going through a mid-life crisis and wanting something more than a sleazy life of selling women from his Chevy. But everyone seems to be on board, including the producer (Anthony Anderson, the big dude from "Barbershop" and "Romeo Must Die") and mixer (DJ Qualls, the skinny white guy from "Road Trip"). The scene where the three of them first get together and create a rap that actually could work is kind of inspiring. You totally believe they're into this and desperate to make magic.

Howard does a nice job carrying that desperation through the movie, whether it's getting the right equipment or generally trying to keep "his mode on." I might have wanted just a little more menace in his performance, maybe something that made it not so easy to sympathize with him. Still, there are a couple of scenes where he's cruel enough -- putting a baby out on the street, for instance -- so maybe I'm just being picky.

While I'm being picky, I thought the movie copped out a bit when it came to the moment of truth with Djay approaching the famous rapper, Skinny Black (Ludacris). First, I totally saw one key scene -- the fate of DJay's tape -- coming from a mile away, which bummed me out a bit. And I knew what would happen after that, which not only was a little too neat but also doesn't send the best message to other aspiring rappers. If you really want to get technical about it, the same thing sort of happened in "Airheads," although I'm guessing that wasn't the idea.

In the end, "Hustle & Flow" is definitely worth watching. Decent story -- even with those holes -- and OK music if you can handle rap. The big draw, though, is Howard's performance, which I'd still rate behind Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote" but neck and neck with Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." Of course, if they had gotten Clint Howard to play DJay, it'd be another story.