89
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAfter Hours is a brilliant film that is so original, so particular, that we are uncertain from moment to moment exactly how to respond to it. The style of the film creates, in us, the same feeling that the events in the film create in the hero. Interesting.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineA wickedly funny black comedy that follows the increasingly bizarre series of events that befall hapless word-processer Griffin Dunne after he ventures out of his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and goes downtown in search of carnal pleasures.
- 100Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrMartin Scorsese transforms a debilitating convention of 80s comedy--absurd underreaction to increasingly bizarre and threatening situations--into a rich, wincingly funny metaphysical farce. A lonely computer programmer is lured from the workday security of midtown Manhattan to an expressionistic late-night SoHo by the vague promise of casual sex with a mysterious blond.
- 100EmpireEmpireMartin Scorsese’s take on NYC puts a hip spin on Joe Minion’s cleverly constructed nightmare.
- 100Wall Street JournalJulie SalamonWall Street JournalJulie SalamonThis unpredictable and hilarious paranoid fantasy is a contemporary, urban "Wizard of Oz," peopled by punk artists and Yuppie vigilantes instead of wicked witches and Munchkins. [5 Sep 1985, p.1]
- 91The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasAfter Hours is a caffeinated black comedy with an emphasis on speed. With a small crew and a tight shooting schedule, Scorsese transformed limited means into a staccato burst of creative energy, playing up the extreme paranoia and frustration of a data processor stranded in Soho.
- 80VarietyVarietyThe cinema of paranoia and persecution reaches an apogee in After Hours, a nightmarish black comedy from Martin Scorsese. Anxiety-ridden picture would have been pretty funny if it didn't play like a confirmation of everyone's worst fears about contemporary urban life.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawA peculiar, potent film.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyAfter Hours is not, ultimately, a satisfying film, but it's often vigorously unsettling.