After Hours | | Cast : | Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette | | Director : | Martin Scorsese | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | September 13, 1985 | | DVD Released Date : | August 17, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 11, 2005 | | Summary | excellent film but don't buy the DVD for the commentary | Content
 | This is an excellent film and one my all time favs. If you like offbeat dark comedies a la Coen brothers, you will love this movie. Griffin Dunne is one my favourite actors, although he can overact at times. He is plays the frantic all around "nice guy" really well in this film. He is clearly out of his element in the wacky artsy Soho area of New York. Nobody makes any sense, especially the women, who are all lunatics. Either Scorcese or Minion is making a statement about the tendency of women to be eratic and overly emotional, I'm not sure. Scorcese comments that he hated living in downtown New York cause he just wanted "go into a building and press a button for an elevator".
Which brings me to the commentary. If you are thinking of getting this (or renting it) for the commentary, save your money, the commentary is horrible and consists mostly of the cinematographer, who I'm sure is a nice guy but he bored me silly, not enough Dunne of Scorcese, we just get endless minutes of this yutz droning on about different shots in excrutiating detail. Anyway, I'll save you trouble, basically the jist of the commentary was that Scorcese was making Last Temptation of Christ and the project got dumped, so he chose this movie because of the tight schedule. They shot the film very quickly and it comes through because there is definitely a sense of urgency that permeates it.
The end product is one of Scorcese's greatest and it is actually multi layered, with many allusions to the Wizard of Oz (trying to get home) and flames/fire (being trapped in Hell). The way all the plot elements tie together is quite clever, something you don't see in todays films, it's all paint by numbers.
Anyway, if you liked this film, check out "Search and Destroy" also with Dunne being even more manic and over the top. It also has Dennis Hopper, John Turturo and Christopher Walken. A must see!
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| Rating | | | Date | March 21, 2005 | | Summary | glad its on dvd now! | Content
| Good movie and rich on cinema I'm glad it finally came out on DVD. What the hell were they waiting for? anyways this film is fun griffin dunne is great I love him I'm going out and buy me my copy. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 15, 2005 | | Summary | Whacky and fun | Content
| Looking for some fun, a computer programmer (Griffin Dunne) arranges a date with a girl (Rosanna Arquette) living in SoHo. Going to her place he loses the $20 bill he's carrying (his only money). This sets up an evening of nightmarish incidents for our hero, too many and too weird to relate here. Before it's over, however, he is wanted by a vigilante committee that thinks he's responsible for a number of break-ins in the neighborhood. In a sense it's a 1930s screwball comedy saturated with absolute horror: Dunne is actually caught in a trap in a completely alien world. This is a very well-done black comedy. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 28, 2005 | | Summary | We all are one step from The Truly Surreal.... | Content
| ....Scorsese shows us how in this great movie. 'Course, mebbe it helps that most of us are no where nears Soho after 10 pm., but trust me, the later it gets in many places after dark, the stranger it gets. What makes this film work is that Griffin Dunne's face is so average guy and so 'deer caught in the headlights'-like that we increasingly identify with him as things get increasingly bizarre. But also it's funny if you've ever been in a similar situation. I have and I am glad I survived it. That entire scenario with Rosanna Arquette and a punked out Linda Fiorentino would have a person like me going 'H-Okay, where's David Lynch and his crew?' And it steadily gets creepier. John Heard offers Dunne the keys to his pad as the bar Heard works at seem to be converting into a dark omnisexual kinda pickup joint, and Teri Garr and the go-go boots and the Monkees-mania gets too unreal. (One would have some thought to having a romp with her--she ain't ugly. But she is space cadet-y. And I'm sure after the Arquette/Fiorentino scenario, Griffin just didn't wanna go there...do you blame him?) Cheech and Chong's presence makes for a intensifying boosterrific 3 AM nightmare. Then there's the whole goings-on with that cursed 20 dollar bill. Overall, Griffin should have started walking home, and taken a chance with the muggers. To all normal folks reading this in the comfort of their homes, never venture out anywhere after 12 AM. That's when the crazies roam. |
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