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Midnight Run
Martin Brest, who triumphed as director of Beverly Hills Cop, delivered another bullseye with Midnight Run, an endlessly entertaining action comedy that features a near brilliant screenplay and surprising chemistry between the leads.
The 1988 film stars Robert De Niro as Jack Walsh, an ex-cop turned bounty hunter who is offered $100,000 by a bondsman to bring in Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a nerdy but intelligent accountant who embezzled an obscene amount of money from the mob and gave it away to charity. In addition to the mobster the Duke stole the money from, Jack also finds his mission complicated by a stone-faced FBI agent who lost his ID to Walsh and and a foul-mouthed fellow bounty hunter who the sleazy bondsman also hires to get the Duke when he thinks Jack has messed up.
Brest gets grand assistance from an intricate, Oscar-worthy screenplay by George Gallo that requires complete attention but said attention is totally worth it as we find ourselves immediately sucked into an outrageous story that stays just within the realm of realism while providing major laughs throughout. If I had one quibble with the story, I don't think a real bounty hunter would open up about his personal life the way Jack does to the Duke. but it was necessary for this story to play out.
The real pleasure of this film is the relationship between these two lead characters and Brest absolutely deserves a lot of credit for this. It is so much fun watching the slow burn of this relationship as we watch the always thinking Duke trying to get inside of Jack's head in hopes of tripping him up and Jack trying not to get caught up in his feelings that Jonathan is in over his head and really doesn't deserve what's happening to him. We have to wait for the eventual bonding we just know is going to happen between these guys, but they never forget their heads or their individual missions.
De Niro and Grodin command the screen creating the core of one of the best buddy/road movies ever made. Grodin's underplaying as the Duke is especially masterful...Grodin can convey five pages of dialogue in one furtive glance. They receive solid support from Yaphet Kotto as the FBI agent with anger issues, Dennis Farina as the mobster, Joe Pantoliano as the greasy bondsman and in one of the best scene-stealing performances ever, John Ashton, who played Taggert in Beverly Hills Cop as the nasty bounty hunter out to steal Jack's thunder, a role light years away from Taggert.
Brest has employed first rate production values in mounting some of the most outrageous action sequences ever put on film, including superb cinematography, production design and Danny Elfman's toe-tapping music. More than anything, this is a testament to the directorial eye of Martin Brest, who creates the near perfect action comedy.
Martin Brest, who triumphed as director of Beverly Hills Cop, delivered another bullseye with Midnight Run, an endlessly entertaining action comedy that features a near brilliant screenplay and surprising chemistry between the leads.
The 1988 film stars Robert De Niro as Jack Walsh, an ex-cop turned bounty hunter who is offered $100,000 by a bondsman to bring in Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a nerdy but intelligent accountant who embezzled an obscene amount of money from the mob and gave it away to charity. In addition to the mobster the Duke stole the money from, Jack also finds his mission complicated by a stone-faced FBI agent who lost his ID to Walsh and and a foul-mouthed fellow bounty hunter who the sleazy bondsman also hires to get the Duke when he thinks Jack has messed up.
Brest gets grand assistance from an intricate, Oscar-worthy screenplay by George Gallo that requires complete attention but said attention is totally worth it as we find ourselves immediately sucked into an outrageous story that stays just within the realm of realism while providing major laughs throughout. If I had one quibble with the story, I don't think a real bounty hunter would open up about his personal life the way Jack does to the Duke. but it was necessary for this story to play out.
The real pleasure of this film is the relationship between these two lead characters and Brest absolutely deserves a lot of credit for this. It is so much fun watching the slow burn of this relationship as we watch the always thinking Duke trying to get inside of Jack's head in hopes of tripping him up and Jack trying not to get caught up in his feelings that Jonathan is in over his head and really doesn't deserve what's happening to him. We have to wait for the eventual bonding we just know is going to happen between these guys, but they never forget their heads or their individual missions.
De Niro and Grodin command the screen creating the core of one of the best buddy/road movies ever made. Grodin's underplaying as the Duke is especially masterful...Grodin can convey five pages of dialogue in one furtive glance. They receive solid support from Yaphet Kotto as the FBI agent with anger issues, Dennis Farina as the mobster, Joe Pantoliano as the greasy bondsman and in one of the best scene-stealing performances ever, John Ashton, who played Taggert in Beverly Hills Cop as the nasty bounty hunter out to steal Jack's thunder, a role light years away from Taggert.
Brest has employed first rate production values in mounting some of the most outrageous action sequences ever put on film, including superb cinematography, production design and Danny Elfman's toe-tapping music. More than anything, this is a testament to the directorial eye of Martin Brest, who creates the near perfect action comedy.