You know what you’re getting with Martin Scorsese: gangsters of some description, colorful language and stunning shots. What you don’t expect is a bizarre and dream-like comedy about an ordinary Joe, but that’s exactly what he delivers here in one of the best Prime Video movies. After Hours is the kind of shaggy dog story you might imagine if you’d taken too much NyQuil.
The film was pitched as a screwball comedy, with Griffin Dunne starring as corporate computer guy Paul. When Paul meets a fascinating woman in a café – Marcy, played by Rosanna Arquette – he sets off a chain of distinctly odd events that take him on a perilous road through New York’s nightlife.
Why After Hours is worth streaming
Let’s face it: any Scorsese movie, even the less well known ones, are worth watching. And this movie is no exception. As the Chicago Reader said at the time of release: “Scorsese’s orchestration of thematic development, narrative structure, and visual style is stunning in its detail and fullness; this 1985 feature reestablished him as one of the very few contemporary masters of filmmaking.”
It’s a “peculiar, potent film” says The Guardian , and the passing of time since its original release has only made it seem weirder: “The obviously comic and farcical aspect has receded and its strangeness and anxiety loom larger, in a string of unsexy encounters and chilling coincidences culminating in a desolate close-dance scene to the accompaniment of Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is?“
The film “mines urban anxiety to unsettling yet often hilarious effect,” says Slant. “Enlivened by propulsive visuals, razor-sharp editing, and luminous cinematography, After Hours treats its often unsettling existentialist material with sardonic élan.” And according to Empire, it’s a “cleverly constructed nightmare.”
That’s a sentiment echoed by Christy Lemire, who says “it might not make any sense. It might not even matter. But it’s a blast while it lasts”.