An uptight pencil pusher (Griffin Dunne) travels downtown for what he hopes will be a little action with a young bohemian (Rosanna Arquette), and everything that can go wrong does go wrong. It's a hilarious battle of life and death...just to get back home.
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The early 80s was not a good time to be Martin Scorsese. Paramount had pulled the plug on his dream project The Last Temptation of Christ and the reviews for The King of Comedy were vicious. On top of this he had grown sluggish as a filmmaker spending days upon days to complete simple scenes. It seemed as though it was all over for this golden child of the 70s...until someone gave him this script.
Working with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (who cut his teeth working with German speed-demon Rainer Werner Fassbinder) Scorsese was able to crank this film out in a matter of weeks. The manic energy greatly aids the film and keeps it from ever getting boring and by the end you are just as worn out as the protagonist. After Hours is an absolute cinematic re-birth. Without it, the name Martin Scorsese might have just become a footnote in cinema history rather than a whole volume.
STONER BONUS: Keep an eye out for Cheech and Chong!
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