AFTER HOURS (1985)
Updated: Feb 3, 2023
A Suspenseful Black Comedy from Martin Scorsese
Grade: A
Martin Scorsese's After Hours is many things, and all of them are done extremely well. It is a portrait of the crazier side of New York City. It is a grown-up version of one of those stories used by parents to scare their kids away from activities like talking to strangers or visiting unfamiliar places. It is a nightmarish retelling of Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland," with its hero following a person of interest into a weird world full of madness. Above all else, it is one of those movies designed to put its main character through the wringer. Like David Fincher's The Game (1997), the protagonist in After Hours endures a series of increasingly horrific incidents, and we are right there with him every weird and outrageous step of the way.
After Hours follows a data entry worker named Paul Hackett (David Dunne). The movie opens with him training a new employee (Bronson Pinchot) who tells him up-front that he has no intention of working there for the rest of his life. Paul doesn't object; in fact, the film shows his eyes glazing around the office at the work other people are doing, indicating that he feels the same way. Later Paul is drifting off to sleep at a restaurant when a girl spots him and compliments the book he is reading.
Her name is Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), and their first meeting is an inversion of the usual "doomed couple" plot that Martin Scorsese sometimes tackles. Two of his previous pictures, Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) both feature a main character who becomes smitten with a woman in white and pursues a relationship with her, but she ultimately learns the hard way that he is not an ideal mate. In After Hours, Marcy is indeed wearing white, but it is she who approaches Paul, and they both pay the price.
Marcy and Paul hit it off pretty well. She later invites him to hang out with her at her friends' apartment in SoHo, but he soon begins to suspect that something is off. He hears her crying with her friend Kiki (Linda Fiorentino) in the other room and sees a prescribed tube of ointment for second-degree burns in her bag. Then she starts telling Paul about unpleasant things that happened to her, including her husbands' passion for The Wizard of Oz rearing its ugly head on their wedding night. This isn't exactly information one shares on the first date, and soon Paul decides it's time to get the heck out of there. Unfortunately, the subway has raised its fare and he doesn't have enough money. Then the insanity really starts....
If the key to a movie's success is the obstacles put in the way of the main character, then After Hours is one of the most successful movies ever. Every situation Paul becomes embroiled in is interconnected and all conspire to bring him down. All he wants is to get back home, but Scorsese and screenwriter Joseph Minion put a brick wall in his path everywhere he goes, with suspenseful and hair-raising results. His efforts to stop two apparent burglars (Cheech and Chong) lead him back to the apartment he had fled, where he learns that Marcy has taken her own life. He has nowhere to turn to; the police don't seem to take him seriously over the phone, and the friendly bartender who initially offered to give him the money turns out to be Marcy's boyfriend. Later, when he tries to enter a club to meet up with Kiki and her friend Horst (Will Patton), the patrons try to give him a mohawk. As the night wears on, he manages to find a few moments of peace, but all are short-lived.
The common theme in Martin Scorsese pictures of the male protagonist unable to relate to women reaches its biggest extreme when Paul makes the acquaintance of no less than four women over the course of the night, and none of them are altogether right in the head. Another woman he spurns (Teri Garr) sets up fliers all over the neighborhood branding him as a burglar, and soon an angry mob is after him. In the movie's most comedic moment, Paul actually finds a lady who is helpful (Verna Bloom), covering him in papier mache after he accidentally dumps plaster on himself to protect him from the mob. But then she leaves him in the dark basement of the club and he is soon snatched up by the two burglars. This whole moment sums up what the movie is at its core: it is a bit goofy, but it is also dark and full of isolation. And David Dunne's performance is outstanding; he perfectly conveys what Paul is going through, his emotions running the gamut from anxiety to desperation.
With After Hours, Martin Scorsese deviates slightly from his formula of exploring guilt-ridden individuals in New York to deliver a movie that is more comical in nature but no less serious. While some of his more famous movies are about the inner turmoil of the protagonist threatening to burst forth, After Hours is about the hero’s exterior threatening to break him. And not every character he brings to the screen learns the error of his ways, but with the final shot of After Hours, there is little doubt that Paul has learned a very valuable lesson indeed. It may not be the director's best work, but it is still an exhilarating black comedy that is sure to keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Joseph Minion
Producers: Amy Robinson, Griffin Dunne, Robert F. Colesberry
Cast: Griffin Dunne (Paul Hackett), Rosanna Arquette (Marcy Franklin), Verna Bloom (June), Tommy Chong (Pepe), Linda Fiorentino (Kiki Bridges), Teri Garr (Julie), John Heard (Tom Schorr), Cheech Marin (Neil), Catherine O'Hara (Gail), Dick Miller (Pete), Will Patton (Horst)
Rated: R
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