Scorsese's most commonly cited 'favorites' usually include De Niro hits such as Goodfellas, Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. His more recent works continue that line of impeccable, crime-centered period pieces for which he is known. This September his film After Hours turned 25 years old and with the shot-em up gangster aura he has been to maintaining, it is always nice to revisit a movie that is purely cult from a director who clearly can work within the mainstream and one who can capture urbanity in all of its madness.
One of the most striking differences is the absence of Robert De Niro. Instead Giffin Dunne stars as Paul Hackett and is less dominating than previous characters such as La Motta in Raging Bull or the taxi driver Travis Bickle. Hackett is a regular computer consultant working in SoHo who is thrust into the darker, psycho-social underbelly which Scorsese creates. With his previous and more popular films the darkness seems more pent up within characters or lifestyles, rather than the sundown madness of SoHo in After Hours.
The film is no less character-driven than Scorsese neo-nior, but it uses more accessible archetypes. That is, some one who has not grown up in the city can relate. After Hours could have been a story about someone visiting the city for just one night. Hackett is both a curious participant and a catalyst.
