Rhythm Thief

Rhythm Thief
Shooting Rhythm Thief on Ridge Street in the Lower East Side.
Directed by	Matthew Harrison
Produced by	Jonathan Starch
Written by	Christopher Grimm Matthew Harrison
Starring	Jason Andrews Kevin Corrigan Eddie Daniels Kimberly Flynn
Music by	John Horn Kevin Okerlund Daniel Brenner Hugh O’Donovan
Cinematography	Howard Krupa
Edited by	Matthew Harrison
Distributed by	Strand Releasing Film Four
Release date	1995
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Rhythm Thief is a 1994 low budget independent feature film made in New York City’s Lower East Side that was awarded a Special Jury Recognition for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival and was called “Inventive, exciting, original” by director Martin Scorsese.

Director Matthew Harrison's second feature film, the standard 16mm black-and-white feature was made for $36,000 US. When his first feature film Spare Me won the Kodak Prix Tournage at the Avignon Film Festival, Harrison used the prize to complete Rhythm Thief. The film won top awards at SXSW, New Orleans Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, was released theatrically in the US and Europe, and is available on the Internet and DVD.

Jason Andrews (Last Exit to Brooklyn) is Simon, a downwardly mobile urban white-guy who hustles a living selling audio cassette bootleg music on the streets of New York City’s Lower East Side. Simon lives in a tenement walk-up where everyone calls him “Whitey”. Ludlow Street chick Cyd (Kimberly Flynn), who has a real job, visits Simon for sex weekday mornings. Simon's bootleg-wannabe sidekick Fuller (Kevin Corrigan, The Departed) has innocent romantic fantasies about Cyd.

Enter Cynthia Sley (Bush Tetras) of 1-900 BOXX (an all-girl militant punk band) who, having learned Simon is selling her music, pays a violent visit with her thugs. They beat up Simon and smash his gear. Further complicating Simon's life, a girl from his past Marty (Eddie Daniels, Bad Lieutenant), shows up with her suitcase to announce Simon’s mom has died.