Review of After Hours (1985) by Paul J — 03 Jun 2013

"After Hours" is a 1985 american black comedy directed by Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver).

A New York office worker has a very strange night when he goes on a late night date with a woman he just met, which turns into nightmare when one bizarre problem after another strands him in a hostile neighborhood in his quest to return home before morning.

"After Hours" is a brilliant film, its a perfect midnight movie, date movie, stoner movie, light movie, comedy-horror movie, quirky movie, but most of all its a fun movie.

I think its also a very influential film. It has directing and cinematography very similar to Wes Anderson movies, which might be the reason why Scorsese called him "The next Martin Scorsese" and coming to think about it, Wes Anderson used the same type of music in "Bottle Rocket" and had James Caan's introduce himself the same way as a character in this movie (the sculptor girl that lives with the main character's date).

The movie is a segment of strange occurrences, similar to what happens to all the characters in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia". I also found the dinner scenes with the main character's date to be similar to the dinner scene in Pulp Fiction, but maybe thats just me.

Apart from comparing it to other movies, the performances are great, the story is unexpected, I loved that Cheech and Chong are in it and I also enjoyed Martin Scorsese's Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo in it.

I believe this is a classic because a movie like this could not be made today, because of the technology that exists. If they were to remake this it would all end within 10 minutes thanks to a phone call.

I'd recommend it to people who liked "Midnight in Paris", "The Hangover", "Being John Malkovich", "The Tenant", "Roger Dodger" or "The Big Lebowski".