After Hours

Pros: dark New York City humor
Cons: unless you're in on the joke, it'll go right by

Possibly the only real noir comedy that incorporates all the great elements of both genres, this film has a place in the book for great hybrid films. If ever there was a darker surreal comedy of manners, After Hours tops it for crystallizing that ...

Pros: confident, funny, involving
Cons: scattery, drags in places

A Bit of Background: "After Hours" was made by gritty indie filmmaker Martin Scorsese in 1985. By this time Scorsese had been hailed as one of the greatest American film-makers for his soul-of-violence masterpieces "Taxi ...

Pros: Inventive twists, dark humour and cunning direction. One of Scorsese's most interesting projects.
Cons: The taint of misogyny in Arquette's comment to Paul about falling asleep during a rape

During the summer I read Peter Biskind's wonderful examination of New Hollywood "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." Despite all its insinuations and gossip, the thing that interested me the most was surprisingly box-office receipts. It amazed me how a film such ...

Pros: Great acting, story, cinematography, and direction
Cons: Geared towards a very specific audience; not a mainstream film.

On the surface, AFTER HOURS is the simple story of a young computer operator (Griffin Dunne) who, after meeting the beautiful and mysterious Roseanna Arquette, decides to live life on the wild side for an evening by heading down to Soho to get to...

Pros: Strangely funny; will make you shout at the characters
Cons: same as the Pros

After Hours in a Women's Apartment
Back in college, two friends of mine rented After Hours and convinced me to watch it with them. I had never heard of the movie before but they told me it was directed by Martin Scorsese and it was a...

Pros: A cast worthy of Scorsese. One of the most intriguing, screenplays ever conceived.
Cons: None offhand. Just know--it's not for everyone.

by Dane Youssef "AFTER HOURS" is a surrealistic experience. It's also one of Scorsese's lesser-known gems and as far as I'm concerned, everything the man has so much as ever sneezed on is a gem. I know that sounds very sad and slavishly ...

Pros: originality, sometimes funny, always interesting
Cons: non sequitors, story is weak

"After Hours" is a quirky black comedy. It is an endless series of events that don't completely make sense, but the director (Martin Scorsese) plays it straight, creating an ironic rather than surreal effect.

Griffin Dunne stars as...

Pros: Absurdly funny, stylish
Cons: None

We’ve all had one of those bizarre episodes where we just couldn’t wait to tell somebody, “You’ll never guess what happened to me today ….” After Hours, the 1985 film that won Martin Scorcese the Cannes Film Festival award for Best Director, is filled...

Pros: Acting, characters, pacing, New York state of mind.
Cons: Humor is a little on the collegiate side.

Martin Scorsese made this 1985 urban-paranoia farce on the cheap (only $3.5 million) out of a script submitted by one Joseph Minion, then a 26-year-old film student who had written the thing for a class. And it sort of shows, in the contrived progression...

Pros: Slightly mean spirited
Cons: Not everyone needs that

It's really a task to keep a story-line like this together for the length of an entire film. Bad goes to worse and the viewer has to hang on tight as a hapless Griffen Dunne (a work-a-day computer programer) is tortured relentlessly by "After...

Pros: funny, amusing, great acting, great story
Cons: none

I love this movie and cannot recommend it enough to someone. I saw it at the theatre, quite by accident. My friend wanted me to go with him and I was a little leery because I had not heard anything about it, but I am SO glad I did. I have since...

Pros: Great movie
Cons: My video copy isn't the best transfer.

I love Martin Scorsese and consider this one of his better movies. Griffin Dunne plays a guy stuck in a dead end job and a dead end life who decides to add a little spice by pursuing a pretty blonde he meets in a coffee shop (played by Patricia...

Pros: Original idea, Oddball characters, Great performances
Cons: It's so unique that you can't really judge it against conventional films

An excellent black comedy from Scorsese, unlike anything else he has ever done. Many critics dismissed it as trivial and shallow, but I thought it was a mesmerizing little movie about an average night which turns into a pure nightmare.
What Griffin...

Pros: Scorsese, characters (well cast), details, photography, low budget.
Cons: ?

A chance date leaves a lonely word processor (Griffin Dunne) lost in the inner depths of Manhattan's SoHo district in Martin Scorsese's quirky black comedy from 1985, After Hours. With its nightmarish adventure and colorful characters, it plays like an adult, R-rated version of The Wizard of Oz. And, like Dorothy in that other tale, our exasperated everyman soon finds himself just wanting to return home. Having lost most of his money in a tornado-like cab ride, however, this proves difficult to pull off as various flaky blondes pursue him late into the night. My favorite: a seemingly friendly cocktail waitress (Teri Garr) who exists in a mid-Sixties time warp (to her boss she's "Miss Beehive of 1965"). In her apartment, the observant will note, she's stockpiling Aqua Net hairspray. Equally fascinating: the numerous rat traps encircling her bed. Her musical tastes, too, run the emotional gamut—from The Monkees to Joni Mitchell (the latter, in view of our tearfully stressed-out hero, is quickly deemed more appropriate). With Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Catherine O'Hara, Verna Bloom and, briefly, Cheech and Chong. Scorsese keeps this one moving, with lively camerawork from Michael Ballhaus (R. W. Fassbinder's onetime cinematographer).