After the decade-long run of critical and commercial successes centered around volcanic Robert De Niro performances, Martin Scorsese had established a reputation as a chronicler of the dark macho id. New York City served as a crucible for the violence and menace of his characters’ toxic masculinity, and a whiff of that vibe crosses over into After Hours. In most other ways, however, the 1985 film marked a distinct change in tone for Scorsese, starting off as a romantic comedy before veering into surrealism and slapstick. There’s a proto-Coen Brothers feel to the twisty-turny tale of a single hallucinatory night in SoHo where coincidences and bad decisions combine to stymie one man in his very simple quest. Despite the departure in subject matter and tone, every frame of the film feels Scorsese-esque. The camera swoops and tracks, close-ups loom meaningfully and music cues sharpen choice moments. Through it all, the tug of menace remains like a thread woven by the city itself even though the film plays as a fish-out-of-water comedy.
That fish is Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), an office worker we first encounter training an underling (pre-fame Bronson Pinchot) in the fine points of word processing. In a throw-away exchange, the underling expresses relief that he won’t be stuck doing this job forever, and we see a shadow flicker across Paul’s face. It’s the first of many times we see that expression–a dawning awareness that he’s in exactly the wrong place, and far over his head. Later that night, Paul meets an alluring woman, Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), while reading Henry Miller in a coffeeshop, and their flirty connection feels like the spark to a light-hearted rom-com about an office drone who finds love. But of course, that’s not where Scorsese is going. Instead, when Paul catches a taxi downtown later that night to Marcy’s place, he embarks on something more like a journey into the heart of darkness that is New York City in the wee hours. Fatefully, his only $20 bill flies out the cab’s window, sealing his fate and setting the machinery of the night in motion.
Many of Scorsese’s films circle around the notion that “you can’t go home again,” but in After Hours, that is literally the plot. The script, by NYU grad student Joseph Minion, nestles Paul’s quest to survive the night within a mirror gallery of recurring elements and talismans. A 20 dollar bill keeps turning up, just out of grasp, along with life-size papier-mâché statues, bagel-shaped plaster paperweights, and, most dangerously for the lonesome Paul, a string of seemingly well-meaning women offering succor. A synopsis of Paul’s attempts to escape SoHo with the help of strange women might read like an account of Wile E. Coyote’s efforts to catch the Roadrunner, and there’s certainly a Looney Tunes flair to many of these hijinks. Dunne, with his wide eyes and expressive features, is perfect in depicting a man trapped both in his own poor decision-making and in increasingly absurd situations that spiral beyond his control. Before the night is over, he’s running through the streets pursued by an angry mob of armed vigilantes and a crazed woman (Catherine O’Hara) at the wheel of a Mister Softee ice cream truck whose distorted jingle is the stuff of nightmares.
Scorsese called this film “an exercise completely in style,” although it’s far from an empty flexing of technique. Filmed during the tumultuous pre-production of The Last Temptation of Christ, the story’s whirlpool of bad luck scenarios might reflect some of Scorsese’s professional frustrations. But because he’s a born filmmaker, that angst manifests as art, and he’s not alone in making it all work. The cast is uniformly brilliant, including brief but indelible turns from Teri Garr, Linda Fiorentino, Verna Bloom and John Heard. Most unexpectedly, After Hours answers the question, “What if Cheech and Chong played the villains in a Scorsese movie?” You have to see it to believe it. Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing is razor sharp and Michael Ballhaus’s cinematography pushes boundaries, especially in kinetic moments such as a POV shot of keys dropped from an upper floor or sweeping tracking shots that fling the viewer across a room as if propelled by the same power that has trapped Paul in this unending night.
Of course, the night does eventually end, with a swift denouement that lands like an expertly deployed punchline. Is this a fever dream of The Odyssey? Does Paul’s appearance in the final shot, covered in a fine layer of plaster dust as he settles at his desk–and then subsequent disappearance when the camera tracks around the room–indicate that he has become a ghost? Does any of it mean anything? As the cashier at an all-night diner intones, “Different rules apply when it gets this late.” This is a low-stakes story, of a guy with no background and no aspirations beyond getting home, and yet his struggle feels elemental, tragic and comic at the same time. Midway through the film, there’s a moment in a punk rock bar when Paul glances at himself in a bathroom mirror, then we see his gaze slip offscreen and grow troubled. The camera pans to show a graffiti sketch of a cartoon shark chomping on a stick figure’s boner. We see the idea percolate up in Paul’s mind: “I’m in exactly the wrong place, and way over my head.” He turns out to be wrong about most other things in this story, but he’s got that part right.
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