Oh Hell Yeah, 'After Hours' Is on Netflix Now

The time has come to rewatch one of Marty's funniest movies

I’m gonna be real with you: this week got away from me. When I finally had time to sit down and do Dad Shows, I couldn’t write about the show I was planning to review. I stared at a blank page and the words would not come. This never happens to me, I swear.

I am not able to watch and write about another show before my arbitrary and self-imposed deadline that I nevertheless take seriously and do my best to adhere to. So I have to pivot. I am writing about a movie I have not seen in years but love deeply and will be watching as soon as I can: The Mandalorian and Grogu star Martin Scorsese’s 1985 dark comedy After Hours, which recently started streaming on Netflix.

When I wrote about Caught Stealing last year, I called it my favorite type of thing — a story set in New York City where the protagonist’s situation just keeps getting increasingly tense and dire. Uncut Gems is a perfect example. Inside Llewyn Davis is another. But the absolute master of this, the guy who invented it and has made like a dozen excellent versions of this story, is Marty.

Taxi Driver is this type of story, as is another one of his collaborations with Paul Schrader, the famously underrated Bringing Out the Dead. Goodfellas, of course. The Wolf of Wall Street, too. Even The Age of Innocence, with its didn’t-see-it-coming social assassination.

But the most concentrated version of this story is After Hours, because it takes place over the course of a single night.

The dreamlike film follows Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett, a guy with a boring job in a boring neighborhood. After a chance meeting with a chic, intriguing woman, he takes a taxi downtown to the hip, artistic, seedy, dangerous neighborhood of SoHo for a date with her. Unfortunately, his last $20 bill flies out the window of the cab. This was before ATMs, let alone Apple Pay, so he’s in trouble. And that’s just the beginning. His odyssey only gets crazier from there. It ends in the morning, with a Sisyphean image that’s both hilarious and depressing.

To paraphrase another great New Yorker, this movie has everything: Linda Fiorentino. Cheech and Chong. Paper mache. A rude subway attendant. Donald Trump’s favorite song.

I had an After Hours poster on the wall of my college apartment in Brooklyn. I had a few nights like After Hours. Anyone who ever liked to go out all night in New York City has. Nights that started out hopeful and ended up bruised and battered, but have moments of serendipity or weird beauty. I once struck up a conversation on the subway with a stranger from Pensacola and right before she got off the train she gave me a tiny seashell. When I watch After Hours again, it will take me back to a time in my life that was mostly a shitshow but was occasionally very fun. I’m looking forward to it.

---

I reviewed the Scrubs revival for TV Guide. It’s actually pretty good. They’re still figuring out what to do with Vanessa Bayer’s character, but she’s very funny.

Overall, by the lowered standards of revivals, Scrubs is off to a promising start. Revivals that match the original in quality are nearly nonexistent. A revival only has to be almost as good as the original to not be a failure. And Scrubs is not a failure. If Braff and creator Bill Lawrence can’t go the Pitt route and make a new show where Braff plays a different doctor, this is about as good as a Scrubs revival could be.