User Reviews

I had the chance to watch the premiere of this film at the Slamdance film festival, and thought it was a great documentary. The idea of looking at subway musicians is highly original, and it's refreshing to see them portrayed as the artists they truly are as opposed to obnoxious bums that apparently can't get a "real" job.

The film goes in-depth with several characters the directors found in the subway, some sponsored by MUNY (Music Underground New York? Something like that...) and some trying to outrun the cops that regularly kick performers out.

We get to see that these people see their lifestyles as careers, and their aspirations and joys are just the same as the rest of us. The movie follows the characters long enough that we really get to know them, without dragging its feet for any length of time. We are right there with each character as they confront their feelings about their lifestyles, some seemingly for the first time in a long while. By the end of the film you will be cheering for each artist, and hopefully look at street performers in a whole different light. I know I certainly will.

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This doesn't really "spoil" the movie as it's not really that shocking, but for the freshest experience don't read ahead unless you've already viewed the film.

I was starting to wonder about the drug situation, as some of the characters seemed overly eccentric and I wondered why they acted so strangely at times. They are all very talented musicians, to the point that you might expect them to be leading regular, productive lives (by most standards, of course) and yet they are still confined to the underground scene, w/o permits trying to outrun the subway-patrol. But as the movie carries on we see actual footage of one performer shooting up heroin, and two talk fairly in-depth about their addictions and how it affects their musical careers and daily lives.

The directors mentioned this in their post-screening discussion, saying that when they left production one character is still using (as far as they know) after a heartening, yet short-lived period of sobriety in the film. It's just another aspect of the movie that makes it all the more real, down-to-earth and refreshing. It's heartbreaking and inspirational at the same time.