After Hours (1985)

A great film, Scorcese is for me the best director of all time but we never hear of this film... We should because it's a film that even if your not a Scorcese fan, you would love it. It's entertaining all along.

Has Paul Hackett ever stayed up this late before the fateful night in After Hours? My guess is no. He's a middle-class office worker who has little to attract or like about him; even a lowly temp-worker waffles on about his dreams of giving the unknown intellectuals of New York a space for their voices to be heard, and Paul is drifting out of the conversation, focusing on little inane details in the background and lazily lambasting his own lack of passion. But even he isn't dumb enough to turn down an opportunity with Marcy after a spontaneous meet cute in a cafe. The later he stays out, the more out of his element he becomes, and strange, nightime forces begin to morph his encounters. Ballhaus' cinematography seems to blow everything out of proportion, much like Paul does. The first instance of bad luck is the swept away twenty dollar note out the taxi window, captured in this poetic shot as if it was a leaf blowing in the wind. It then turns up again later in the film, taunting Paul on the chaotic, mindless logic that seems to rule the night. In the diner too, as he tries to recover from a slight mishap in wooing Marcy (after zoom-ins on winks that seem to say that everything is moving along nicely), the camera again magnifies every tiny bit of paranoia that drifts into his mind as he witnesses the blatant flirting with the owner and quickly lets go of her hand in closeup. And then as the night goes on and each obstacle stacks on one after the other, Paul becomes desperate at any kind of escape, and the camera frantically moves towards the telephone that will get him back home, and later practically pounces upon Gail's phone. Much of the humour of After Hours is from the fact that these incidents of bad luck keep hurtling themselves at Paul, unrelenting and without reasonable cause. Minion has embedded his script with an awareness of the usual romantic or erotic conventions. He at first tries to woo the artistic and free-spirited Kiki; it seems the opportunity basically falls into his lap as she requests a massage, already half-naked. He assumes that sensual position behind her, and just as he is past whispering and about to make her move...she starts snoring. Later the same mood is ruined; as he and Marcy return from the diner, he pulls her back to him and leans in for the romantic kiss (a move that has been perfected over decades of romantic movies) until she starts sobbing. And then she is on and off - lighting a candle and hungrily kissing him, and then going into vivid detail about a traumatic rape that would sour any sexual encounter. A simple quest for sex has turned into something unbelievably convoluted and unexplainable. Nothing seems to go right for Paul. As he is continually rejected he glances over to the next apartment and the first thing he sees is a copulating couple. Later he does so again and just happens to witness a murder, to which he sardonically remarks he will somehow be caught in the mess and blamed for the act. Toilets overflow, cash registers don't open, fares increase at midnight, and a bouncer, in the vein of Kafka's Before the Law, frustratingly withholds entry to a club. When he returns to find the now dead Marcy, the suicide itself is second fiddle to his unwrapping of her corpse. In a blow of cruel irony, he finds he has blown his chance with someone flawless and beautiful, as her porcelain skin reveals no blemishes. The forces and creatures of witching hour mock him at every turn - their dialogue cackles and reminds him of each misfortune, each turn of bad luck and missed opportunity. He can do nothing but submit to the surreality of the night. In After Hours, a character says he will be back in two minutes, and returns a little more than an hour later.

After Hours is the kind of movie that inspired lots of filmmakers but ultimately does not work by itself as a work of art.The film tells the story of an average 80s worker that finds himself into a bizarre adventure full of absurd and terrifying situations.The problem with the movie is that everything (the plot, the characters...) is so absurd that at the end you stop caring about what may happen next. The fact that the script jokes about thing that are not laughable (rape, suicide...) does not help at all.I understand that this movie's absurd humour and the way it deals with twisted versions of actual 80s fears probably were very innovative in its time, but nowadays its not enough to surprise the average viewer.

For many years this movie, together with a few others, formed my view of NYC as a mysterious, adventurous, and dangerous place. Although not as gritty and threatening as the Manhattan seen in Taxi Driver or Serpico or even The Warriors, there is a similar feeling in this movie that anything may happen and that downtown is not safe during after hours. After Hours does not take place during the bleak 70s but during the 80s, when SoHo is on the rise to (or well into) the gentrification of today. On my first, and all subsequent visits to SoHo, I have felt and then relived disillusion while seeing major brand stores in the neighborhood. Seeing SoHo today, its hard to believe After Hours as an Oddyssean fairy tale that probably set out to satire the preconceptions of SoHo at the time, of a somewhat dangerous place.One of the reasons I love After Hours is its easy-breezy feel. I read somewhere that Scorsese took on the film on a career low, when other options where few. If that forced him into this territory, lovers of Scorsese should be thankful, since After Hours serves up something very different from his classic show-pieces (however great they may be). I can think of very few films that are quite as enjoyable and easily consumed but still should be considered a serious piece of work. The film leans more towards comedy than is often the case with Scorsese but with familiar camera and editing work. The pace is high throughout the movie and the twists and turns of the story is always entertaining. Other highlight are of course small parts by favorites like John Heard and Catherine O'Hara.After Hours is arguably the most underrated of Scorseses film (despite the high IMDb and Metascore ratings). Overshadowed by many of his other highlights, many will probably consider it a minor Scorsese due to its mainly comedic touch. At the same time, it is a highly entertaining thriller and a proof to Scorseses versatility.