RHYTHM THIEF

Hard-hitting and as close to the streets as a cinderblock dropped off an overpass, Matthew Harrison's shocking, funny, punk noir drags the viewer by the eyeballs through the crumbling concrete chasms of New York City, where music outlaw Simon ekes out a living. He secretly and illegally tape-records concerts, then sells his bootleg cassettes in seedy rave clubs and on pavement where there's been a murder for every square inch. Crazies and addicts lurk in dark and deterorating appartment walk-ups, a killer band guns for our stoic hero; and everything, the beat, the talk, even the lovemaking is fast, raw, and angry. Deal with it. Deal with this: RHYTHM THIEF, shot in just over 10 days and within a four-block radius of Manhattan's Lower East Side, has more sting, energy, hilarity, and heart that all the wannabes (yeah, you know who you are). With blazing black-and-white photography that's like seeing the thunder of a wickedly cranked amp, and characters who don't need no stinkin' color to have an attitude, this one rocks and rules.