After Dark, My Sweet **** (1990, Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern) – Classic Film Review 332  

In 1990, James Foley wrote and directed the top-notch neo noir film tale of kidnapping and double-cross After Dark, My Sweet, flawlessly adapted from Jim Thompson’s hardboiled novel.

‘When a man stops caring what happens, all the strain is lifted from him. Suspicion and worry and fear, all things that twist his thinking out of focus are brushed aside, and he can see people exactly as they are at last.’ – Kevin ‘Kid’ Collins.

It’s 1990 and the young Jason Patric (aged 24) stars as a fatalistic ex-boxer who tangles at his peril with the provocative but weak and frightened widow Rachel Ward and the devious ‘uncle’ Bruce Dern in director James Foley’s top-notch retro-film noir tale of kidnapping and double-cross. It’s flawlessly adapted from Jim Thompson’s hardboiled novel.

Patric plays Kevin ‘Kid’ Collins, who is living the life of a drifter after being disqualified from the boxing for life due to an incident in the ring and escaping from the mental hospital. Ward plays the femme fatale Fay Anderson, who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her ex-husband left. Dern plays the grafter Garrett Stoker, Fay’s ‘Uncle Bud’, who sweet-talks them both into helping kidnap a rich boy for ransom money.

A twisty tale of lust, love and loyalties, this movie is particularly sweet, steamy and satisfying. It is played appropriately lustily and with great relish by exactly the right cast. Patric is stupendous, Ward gives a notable performance and Dern is on commanding form.

The screenplay’s a finely polished one, adapted very neatly indeed by Foley and Robert Redlin. And the movie is tautly and expertly directed by Foley, obviously in love with the material.

With its fine, atmospheric, retro-look cinematography on California locations by Mark Plummer and its posh, lush score by Maurice Jarre, this is an impeccably achieved, edge-of-seat thriller in the grand vintage-movie style.

George Dickerson, James Cotton, Rocky Giordani and Corey Carrier are also among the cast.

After Dark, My Sweet is the first of two Jim Thompson adaptations released in 1990, the other being the better-known The Grifters. Thompson also wrote the screenplay for Paths of Glory. He died in April 1977, aged 70.

James Foley also directed At Close Range, Who’s That Girl, Two Bits (1995) Glengarry Glen Ross, Fear, The Chamber, The Corruptor, Confidence (2003), Perfect Stranger, Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and Fifty Shades Freed (2018), as well as 12 episodes of TV’s House of Cards (2013).

Prolific film and music video director James Foley died on May 6, 2025 at the age of 71. He passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles after a years-long struggle with brain cancer.

After studying film production, Foley made his directorial debut with 1984’s Reckless, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 332 derekwinnert.com