Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44016 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-17
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
This well-regarded cult film is a tense Kafka-esque tale concerning what happens to a likeable computer guy who is in the wrong place at the wrong time in the city that never sleeps--New York. This is a New York infested with bizarre characters vividly brought to life by a once-in-a-lifetime cast. Griffin Dunne's wonderfully controlled comic performance as Paul Hackett is the glue that holds this increasingly surreal film together. Scorsese utilises a full array of independent and underground film techniques, including special film speed manipulations, angles and edits, deftly capturing the strange rhythms of an After-Hours New York City. Many will find the jokes clever and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Some, however, will find the film an excruciating series of staged circumstances setting up a sadistically cruel dark nightmare of horrors. And there are a few lines of dialogue so poorly written they remind you how unbelievable the thin story really is. But forgive the film these few lapses--overall it's a wild, surreal ride. The most offbeat character is the beehive-sporting, Monkee-obsessed neurotic played to perfection by Teri Garr. And the moment when Griffin Dunne uses his last quarter to play Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is" and dances with Verna Bloom while an angry mob searches SoHo for him is an inspired bit of lunacy. --Christopher J. Jarmick

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and Original Black Comedy
This film, for me, is a masterpiece of film making. It stands completely on its brilliant, original story plus great acting from all. And this is all filmed and edited together seemlessly. There are no "formula" additives of big star, big budget, over-the-top story, or any other Hollywood chemicals to artificially sweeten the product.

It is a night in the life of an ordinary hum-drum office worker that becomes a surreal rollercoaster ride while reading a book on his own in a cafe leads to him meeting a charming but mysterious stranger who pulls him in to a series of fateful events with seemingly no escape. The end of the film is so subtle and simple but a blast when it dawns on you what has happend.

The film starts slow but like a snowball rolling down hill the black comedy gathers pace and turns into a flurry.

The story follows an ordinary guy who has an extroadinary night full of horrendous coincidences and accidents. Believe me you would not want a night like this!

But what this film really is about is the variety of characters that dwell in large cities and are seldom seen until "after hours".

Scorcese's Most Underrated Work.
It's a shame this DVD is only available at a high price or as part of a Martin Scorcese box set in the UK as it is a superb and underrated film.
'After Hours' was released in September 1985,Friday the 13th to be exact which is very apt for this bleak,black comedy.
Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) is a bored office worker who needs to unwind after a stressful shift.He decides to embark on a relaxing night in Manhattan but what follows is anything but relaxing.
He meets a girl (Rosanna Arquette) and they arrange to meet at her wierd friend's apartment but he loses his taxi fare en-route and when he eventually arrives there they argue,he walks out and she then commits suicide.Panicking and afraid of being accused of murder or manslaughter he flees the scene into the pouring rain and seeks solace in a bar only to discover the bar owner is the partner of the deceased.Seeing that he needs to dry himself and freshen up the bar owner gives Hackett the keys to his apartment,when Hackett lets himself into the apartment the neighbours think he's responsible for a recent spate of break-ins and turn vigilante chasing him through the streets of New York's Soho district.This is just the beginning of a series of nightmare-like events where we see Paul Hackett stumble from one bad experience to the next in the darkness of night hence the film title 'After Hours'.
It is a brilliant,uncomfortable 90 odd minutes of comedy,paranoia and suspicion.The acting is great and the camera work as with all Martin Scorcese films is exceptional,a very dark comedy indeed.

I wanted to like this, but.........
After the failure of the King of Comedy, Scorsese needed to become inventive and became part of the 80s parade, which was his only way of encouraging people to look at his often hard-hitting and controversial pieces.

Produced by David Geffen and funded by his own company, The Geffen Company. After Hours was born.

Paul works in an office and when in a bar late at night, meets a girl who wants him to come over to her place. Problem, is this is where the nightmare begins..........

Scorsese's direction emphasised New York's dark abandoned hideaways, the dirt, the flith and an entrepreneur yuppie obbessive society. This is credited as a semi-indie underground work. After Hours seems to be a very weird piece, where it seems Paul is sacrified by giving into strangers he doesn't know, a string of others follows and he cannot think straight nor know properly how to escape the situation. Neno plays a big part, it is striking to the eye, the flashy colours also indicate a place of comfort, warm and safety, a place for redemption.

I wanted to like After Hours, but the film is tugged along, too many things happen at once and it is "very" difficult to keep up or even understand. After Hours is rather tedious because of this, as well as the material becoming patchy once half away through and the entertainment value slowly loses it's value. After Hours also looks very dated nowadays and i'm very surprised nobody on amazon has brought this up, which is probably another reason why my viewing was disturbed. It's odd, maybe too odd for someone like me. A middle of the road film that doesn't quite click.

I will however not critise what Scorsese has done here, this is "still" misunderstood and is best suited as a good study aid into how people see relationships, fear and redemption for their film studies courses at University.