Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Mark Adams A masterpiece on all levels, with a constant undercurrent of high-voltage electricity charging every moment. A spectacularly beautiful movie.From Wikipedia entry; I cannot put it any better: Roger Ebert in his Great films review of the movie wrote "After Dark, My Sweet is the movie that eluded audiences; it grossed less than $3 million, has been almost forgotten, and remains one of the purest and most uncompromising of modern film noir. It captures above all the lonely, exhausted lives of its characters." Writer David M. Meyers praised the script "The screenplay, which hews closely to Jim Thompson's heartless novel, is unusually tight, spare, and well constructed."

timmy_501 After Dark, My Sweet is a film with a classic noir set-up: a desperate man teams up with a violent drifter and an alcoholic widow to kidnap a rich child. Director James Foley takes this plot and makes the best film that could possibly have been made with an already good premise. It helps that this is based on a short novel by Jim Thompson, a writer whose pulpy crime plots-which focus more on twisted characters than plot details-seem to work especially well on the screen.The main character here is ex-boxer Kid Collins, a drifter who is troubled by an incident from his past. He's so troubled that he seems strange to everyone he encounters; this inspires extreme reactions so that people he has just met are equally as likely to try physical violence on him as they are to try to take him home. His skewed perspective is especially well represented by scenes that suddenly end with jarring transitions that seem to strike like lightning. Troubled as he is, he usually seems to have the best interests of others at heart. Given a chance to escape the plot he's about to be pulled into, he refuses it because he sees a chance for a real connection with the widow.So, this film has all the best elements of noir: a troubled anti-hero, a desperate criminal plot, and a sense of weary inevitability in the way the plot unfolds. The visuals, editing, direction, and acting are all top notch and this has one of those great endings that gives the viewer a new way to look at everything that has happened before. This compares well with the best noir and neo-noir films ever made; in fact, I'm shocked by its obscurity.

The_Void It's a shame that this wasn't very good because I really miss film noir and try my best to see as many of the newer Neo-Noirs as possible. The first thing I noticed about this movie was the poor lead performance from Jason Patric. He looks too scruffy to lead a film like this, and his general lack of enthusiasm doesn't do much to get the audience into the film. The rest of the film pretty much falls apart around him, as the characters aren't consistent and the plot isn't very well worked, and never becomes overly exciting. The acting is all rather downbeat and in trying to put in good performances, none of the cast really manage it. The plot follows a retired boxer who has escaped from a loony bin. He stops at a bar for a drink and soon meets a young widow named Fay. She lets him stay on a caravan on her land, and things start looking up for the ex-mental patient. However, things take a turn towards the wrong side of the law when Fay's uncle Bob turns up and convinces the pair to partake in a kidnapping that he's planning. This leaves the scruffy, lunatic, ex-boxing drifter in a sticky situation, as he to decide where his loyalties lie...I haven't read the book by Jim Thompson upon which this film is based, and given my viewing of this film; I'm not going to bother. After Dark, My Sweet continually tries to instil the same feeling that made the classic noirs of the forties and fifties such a delight, but it always fails as the director has forgotten to give the audience any reason to care for the characters and their plights. Director James Foley also directed the very decent Glengarry Glen Ross, in which he managed to pull very strong performances out of his cast members, which suggests to me that he's a director who needs big stars in order to make his films work. The cinematography is good, but doesn't fit the tone of the film at all. This sort of film got its name for the black and white picture, so it's always going to be difficult to create a noir atmosphere with a crisp and clear colour picture. That being said, the film does look nice and the director captures the locations well. On the whole, I can't recommend this film because it doesn't do what it set out to; but anyone going into the movie expecting only a nineties thriller shouldn't be too disappointed.

Monk-17 Ever read Jim Thompson? He's hard-boiled noir with the most extreme fatalism and misanthropy I've ever encountered. There are rarely private detectives in his work - just losers, psychotics and small-time con artists. This film has Thompson nailed - "If God made any real mistakes in this world, it was in giving us a will to live when we've got no excuse for it." Every character in the film balances on a razor's edge between surreal and creepy realism. There's sleazy, conniving Uncle Bud, played by Bruce Dern and spookily well-intentioned Doc Goldman played by George Dickerson. Jason Patric gives a wonderful, often heart-wrenching performance as Kid Collins, a none-too-bright, shy ex-fighter who's more scared of himself than of anyone else. Rachel Ward is Fay, the sexy femme fatale who we can't quite figure out...It's not your standard film noir, nor is it intended to be. After Dark My Sweet, along with The Grifters, are two excellent adaptations of novels by one of my favorite writers, Jim Thompson.