Rhythm Thief

Simon (Andrews) plays his cards close to his chest and seems to think he's in control: since arriving in New York from the sticks, he's built a kind of career selling bootleg music tapes on the streets, embarked on a casual relationship with a woman who, despite herself, can barely resist him, and his cool demeanour has earned the respect of local low-lifes. Well, not quite all. The musos whose sounds he steals are ready to get heavy, while Marti (Flynn), a dreamy girl with mystical-poetic pretensions who's followed him from back home, seems quietly determined to crack his tough emotional shell. Maybe city life isn't all it's made out to be. Harrison's grainy b/w, $11,000 second feature may have won the Best Director Prize at 1995's Sundance festival, but that doesn't mean it's not a pretty trite tale of redemption. True, the direction has a certain raw energy and terse economy, but the slim, stretched-out storyline is laden with clichés both ancient (the waifish would-be saviour, a seaside idyll) and modern (endless inarticulate street talk, seedily offbeat behaviour). Hard going.