Paul Hackett is leading a mundane life, working for a large bank in IT his days are spent training new arrivals to the bank how to use its systems, rather unfortunately nobody ever seems to stay and Paul trains people repeatedly to do the same job. In a spiralling depressed state Paul heads out of his apartment and into the night, a coffee shop seems the ideal place to clear his head. It's at the time that things seem there most bleak that Paul encounters Marcy, she is everything a man could want, stylish, feminine, beautiful and attractive; from her reading matter Paul can tell that she is no air head either. This chance encounter flags up a promise of things to come, and having returned to his apartment Paul calls Marcy, who invites him across; what begins in a dream like manner turns into a nightmare as Paul enters New York's art district in the quest for romance.
This 1985 offering from now Academy Award winning Martin Scorsese is the most unusual and un-contrasting movie of the directors career. It bears no resemblance in any way to any of his works before or since, it is in fact almost unrecognisable as a work of this talented director best known for his gangster movies that include Goodfella's. After Hours falls under the wing of being classified a comedy, however the movie offers few laughs; but many smiles.
Told in what could easily be real-time the movie follows Pauls (Griffin Dunne) adventure through the night. After the optimistic start for Paul things take a downward spiral, and he finds himself trapped
in a neighbourhood unfamiliar to him. From losing his money, to the discovery of a dead body; Paul finds himself the victim of a witch-hunt suspected for carrying out a series of burglaries, and possibly even worse a murderer.
Moving from different ends of the category spectrum one moment the movie seems mildly witty, the next minute it's quite horrific. Don't get me wrong the film features no blood, gore or scares as such; what it does however is plays on your mind and frequently asks you the question "what would you do?"
As Paul's journey through the night continues he meets with a wide variety of people Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) being the starting point. But each of the people that Paul encounters is far from what we might call normal, each one having an unusual quirk or issue, that not only Paul see's but we the viewers see this too; as if we are seeing the world through Paul's eyes. Every encounter that Paul makes, leads to a certain level of misunderstanding; his simple attempt to get home seems to antagonise those that surround him. With each encounter suspicion grows that Paul is not quite the innocent he at first seems, but all the while we can clearly see that Paul is very much as pure as pure can be.
I love the aspect of the story that shows when things look bad they can certainly get worse; you have been in the situation yourself I'm sure that no sooner are you completely broke, than a series of unexpected expenses arise. Here Pauls journey all goes wrong when he decides to take a limited amount of money with him on his night out, money which is lost in a freak accident. And the story all revolves around the dollar and a half that Paul desperately needs to get him home.
While it might not sound in principle like the most enticing movie to grace your screen, it's certainly far from being dull. As each new chapter opens you get a host of new characters to deal with, all of whom have links to previous encounters Paul has made. These characters are all played by whom at the time were the cream of the crop in American cinema, Linda Fiorentino, John Heard, Cheech & Chong, Catherine O'Hara, Terri Garr to name but a few.
The humour aspect of the movie as I commented on earlier is really understated and to a casual passerby almost non-existent and it's not until you look back at the events of After Hours that you except and understand the humour of the piece, this is an incredibly impossible series of events that could only happen to the most unfortunate person in the world. Paul finds himself in strange S & M bars, being the basis for a sculpture, as well as being terrorised by a series of increasingly unstable women.
Special Features:
The Trailer - This is where the movies biggest problem lies in my opinion, I feel the movie although difficult to fairly represent in any way is made less appealing here. The result a very artsy looking trailer that featured in every trailer block in 1986 that gave a very false representation of the movie. I remember at the time thinking that the movie looked really awful, and swore blind to avoid it. However an accident in 1991 with amphetamines meant that on late night television I was forced to watch the movie, the result a completely different vision of this incredible film.
Deleted Scenes - Some work, and some don't hence the purpose of them being deleted I guess. One scene involving O'Hara screaming "SIT ON MY FACE!" is certainly an unfair victim of editing, because to some degree it would create the movies only laugh, maybe this was the purpose of its deletion.
Filming For Your Life: The story of how Scorsese stumbled upon After Hours having had his scheduled 1983 movie Last Temptation Of Christ (later filmed in 87 and released in 88) fell apart. Dunne discuses his discovery of the script originally titled Lies, and how he found the script so intense he knew he had to be involved. A series of producers and Griffin Dunne comment on the fact that Scorsese was looking for a movie that to prove himself again with American audiences. The most interesting aspect of this documentary is the story about how the film was originally to have been made by Tim Burton.
The director's commentary is an elaborate version of the documentary that becomes more of a labour than a joy, regardless of how much you might like Scorsese or the other commentator Dunne. The 20 minute documentary Filming For Your Life was a much more bite sized and tolerable version of the same events.
I believe that After Hours is very much the unseen great of Scorsese' career, it's a pleasure to watch time and time again. It's also not one of those movies that you need to leave years between viewing, in reviewing this DVD this is the third time I have seen the movie this year, and it still retains an element of the unknown as well as aspects of the movie I had not seen before, and that's the great part a fresh discovery with each viewing.
The only way to get After Hours at present is by purchasing the Martin Scorsese box set which also includes Goodfella's, New York New York, Boxcar Bertha, Last Waltz and Raging Bull; unless of course you purchase the US DVD release available through play.com priced £6.99.
Surrender Dorothy is a reference used in the movie in regards to a aspect of love making.
Spencer Hawken 12/07
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