SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!

Simon is a street retailer, his shop a corner on the lower east side in New York, his stock bootleg cassette tapes,the ambience a boombox. He scrounges food from restaurants, exists on vodka and beans, sleeps on the floor, and cares for an unloved cat. Marty, who may be an old girlfriend, visits. Down and out New York, unlovely and violent.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Rhythm Thief Plot Summary and Synopsis

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 on weekday mornings; while 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, Marty (Eddie Daniels, Bad Lieutenant), a girl from his past, shows up with her suitcase to announce that Simon’s mother has died.

So than he can record a 1-900 BOXX gig, Simon borrows money from his middle-aged mentor, Mr. Bunch.

The band comes after Simon, beats Fuller, and hounds Simon out of the city with Marty in tow. Simon and Marty hightail it to Queens on the subway, ending in Far Rockaway where Marty confesses her love to Simon and they spend a romantic night under the boardwalk at 105th Street.

Rhythm Thief Ending

But there is no escape for Simon; he is drawn inexorably back to the neighborhood for a final electrifying reckoning with fate.

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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