SLAM DANCE

A married cartoonist named C. C. Drood becomes involved in the cover up of a political sex scandal after his lover, Yolanda Caldwell, a call girl, is found murdered.

Drood has betrayed his wife Helen with the exotic Yolanda, whom he meets at a club where the patrons slam dance, violently crashing into one another on the dance floor.

Bobby Nye, a former lesbian lover of Yolanda's, hires a hit man named Buddy to do away with Drood, who is also hotly pursued by the police. Drood ultimately comes to believe that Bobby and Buddy are the ones responsible for Yolanda's death. A corrupt cop, Gilbert, is doing everything in his power to pin the whole thing on Drood, but a police colleague, Smiley, intervenes on the wanted man's behalf.

Buddy is eventually overcome with guilt in his role in the killing of Yolanda, so he spares Drood's life and takes his own. To escape with his wife and his life, Drood tries to make Nye and the cops believe that Buddy's body is actually his.

Buddy, the hit man, is overcome with guilt and spares Drood, taking his own life. Drood uses Buddy's body to fake his own death and escape with his wife.

The ending sees the central threat resolved through Buddy's remorse, which subverts the usual hit man trope and allows Drood to outwit both the police and his enemies. By faking his own death, Drood seizes control in a world that repeatedly tried to scapegoat him, suggesting a desperate but oddly fitting escape from the labyrinth of corruption and violence.