After Dark, My Sweet

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After Dark, My Sweet

R

Released Aug 24, 1990

1h 54m

Crime

Drama

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Popcornmeter

80%

Tomatometer

20 Reviews

61%

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1,000+ Ratings

After escaping from a mental hospital, drifting ex-boxer Kid Collie (Jason Patric) meets an alcoholic widow, Fay (Rachel Ward), who entices him into performing maintenance work at her estate. When crooked Uncle Bud (Bruce Dern) joins the two, Fay's darker side begins to appear. Bud and Fay concoct a scheme to kidnap the son of a local wealthy family and have Collie carry out the dirty work, to which the troubled ex-boxer agrees, but he soon has second thoughts.

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Vincent Canby

New York Times

A brisk, entertaining contemporary melodrama.

Rated: 3.5/5

Aug 30, 2004

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Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

The film is a hot-wired crime thriller that captures [Jim] Thompson's flair for hard action, malicious wit and fevered eroticism.

May 12, 2001

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Joe Brown

Washington Post

Foley has brought the novel subtly up to date, and does a good job of maintaining Thompson's artful ambiguity.

Jan 1, 2000

Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

It's a modern noir that, rather than merely cheerfully copying the genre conventions, understands despair from the inside.

Rated: 3.5/4

Nov 20, 2023

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Terry Francis

Southern Voice (Atlanta)

The film gets mired in unbelievable plot twists, and the screenplay wallows in a lot of phony angst.

Rated: 1.5/4

May 9, 2023

Full Review

Rene Jordan

El Nuevo Herald (Miami)

After Dark, My Sweet veers off from the source material rather scarcely, but serves to enrich it when it does. [Full review in Spanish]

Nov 3, 2022

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Alain E

Crime doesn’t pay, if you believe this movie. The story is related by an aimless drifter who is sucked into a stupid plot of quick riches that involves kidnapping the little boy of a rich family. In the end he will find the courage to sacrifice himself. There is decent acting and cinematography. Music by Maurice Jarre is serviceable.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

06/13/25

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Philip D

Underrated kidnap sleeper feat. great turns by Rachel Ward as the boozy seductress and - in particular-Bruce Dern as the loser criminal.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/23/22

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Audience Member

Dragged and boring, somehow lost.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

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Audience Member

An odd crime film, one that surprises the viewer because you only know as much as the crazed boxer knows and it does not help that he is deranged. Jason Patric is excellent here; indeed his career now looks like one long missed opportunity. But at least he has this one to hang his hat on.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Jason Patric nos entrega una memorable actuación interpretando a un boxeador vagabundo enfrentado a una mujer fatal (Rachel Ward) y un criminal (Bruce Dern), en esta cinta "noir", basada en una novela de Jim Thompson ("The Grifters", "The Getaway"). Una excelente fotografía y una muy buena dirección por parte de James Foley, hacen de "After Dark My Sweet" una cinta casi obligatoria para los fanáticos del "noir".

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Yet again, here I go reviewing a film from a while back('90). However, I just saw this again and had t give it a mention. Jason Patric is truly one of the better actors around but we rarely see him. In this one, he plays an ex-boxer who suffers from closed-head injury symptoms from blows to the head which can be seen by how he mumbles around due to his balance being affected. He gets mixed up with an alcoholic widow played by Rachel Ward and a burned out former lawman portrayed by another great actor by the name of Bruce Dern. These two lowlifes pull a reluctant Collie(Patric) into a kidnapping scheme in which the kid turns out to be diabetic making things all the more chaotic.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/12/23

Full Review

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James Foley

Director

Jason Patric

Kevin 'kid' Collins

Rachel Ward

Fay Anderson

Bruce Dern

Uncle Bud

George Dickerson

Doc Goldman

James Cotton

Charlie

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - I'm Not Stupid

1:17

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - Glad You Came Back

2:22

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - Punching His Brains Out

2:13

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - Bert's Bar

2:12

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - You Know Where I'll Be

2:29

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - I've Seen You

2:17

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - That's the Wrong Boy

2:28

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - If I Only Knew What You Wanted

2:12

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - Picking Up Charlie

2:05

After Dark, My Sweet: Official Clip - A Bad Feeling

1:41

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Synopsis

After escaping from a mental hospital, drifting ex-boxer Kid Collie (Jason Patric) meets an alcoholic widow, Fay (Rachel Ward), who entices him into performing maintenance work at her estate. When crooked Uncle Bud (Bruce Dern) joins the two, Fay's darker side begins to appear. Bud and Fay concoct a scheme to kidnap the son of a local wealthy family and have Collie carry out the dirty work, to which the troubled ex-boxer agrees, but he soon has second thoughts.

Director: James Foley
Producer: Ric Kidney, Robert Redlin
Production Co: Avenue Pictures Productions
Rating: R
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 24, 1990, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 1, 2007
Box Office (Gross USA): $535.0K
Runtime: 1h 54m
Sound Mix: Surround

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