After Dark, My Sweet

After Dark, My Sweet is a film directed by James Foley. The man has a forgettable name, and that's too bad, for his talent is under-appreciated: as seen in this film and in Glengarry Glen Ross. Perhaps the hidden genius within his films allow for him to go unnoticed. For, in After Dark, My Sweet there are scenes and cuts that you only fully realize later. The film is languorous--steamy under Californian skies and ambivalent. Many of the things that actually happen in the film happen because the characters were bored. They are so empty and lazy, that they allow for insanity to seep into their lives. Consider the main character: Collie (Jason Patric). He is strange and too amicable among those who should not be given a second look. He seems to do things out of a shrug. "What else was I gonna do?". One day at a bar, Collie meets Fay (Rachel Ward) after a scuffle with the barman. She drunkenly takes him home and offers him work, but after Collie meets the odd Uncle Bud, he flees. He eventually returns after fleeing from a doctor who suspects he is insane. Now that he's accepted this odd menagerie of people, he allows the insanity of Uncle Bud to pervade his life. The trio decide to kidnap a young boy, and all goes to hell. This is a noir film, and that was probably inevitable. There is so much anti-life in After Dark, My Sweet that it becomes sort of fascinating. The movie is no easy watch, for it is constantly challenging and languorous. And then at the end, we get to see everything that we have already seen in a new light. After Dark, My Sweet is so odd and contemplative, that it becomes sort of great.