Midnight Run – Old school entertainment at its best

If ever the phrase ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to’ applied to something, it was the 1988 Robert DeNiro film ‘Midnight Run.’ There’s something about it that just works.  Maybe it’s the simplicity of the plot, i.e. Robert DeNiro’s bounty hunter, Jack Walsh, has to escort his – unwilling – prisoner, ‘The Duke,’ played by Charles Grodin, from one side of America to the other.  Even the supporting characters claim that’s a task so easy that it could be done backwards.  However, Jack finds this simple accountant more of a handful that he bargained for.  It’s not just the Duke’s repeated escape attempts and constant chatter about Walsh’s unhealthy lifestyle that cause the problems (apart from bringing on Jack’s ‘sleeping’ ulcer!), it’s the fact the Duke is also wanted by the FBI, another bounty hunter and the Las Vegas mob.

As I say, this film is a product of times past.  It doesn’t rely on extensive computer effects or high octane action, it simply has excellent chemistry between its two leads.  If you read the trivia online surrounding this film, you’ll see that a lot of the dialogue was adlibbed between DeNiro and Grodin which normally means that the actors clearly took great pleasure in interacting with each other and got a feel for the relationship and how it progresses.  There’s also a decent amount of character development, especially with DeNiro, as the two of them – naturally – start off hating each other, due to the fact that DeNiro is basically taking his prisoner to long-term incarceration (and possibly death at the hands of organised crime lords!), but they gradually warm to each other and end up as different people than where they began from.

It’s a bit of a mish-mash of genres really, bouncing effortlessly between action, crime, chase, road movie and, perhaps most notably, ‘buddy-cop’ movie (despite the fact that neither of the two leads are currently police officers).  There’s not too much here that you won’t expect, so it’s not like the story is going to revolutionise Hollywood script-writing.  However, it’s simply a good, fun, entertaining film.  I would almost go as far as to say that it could be ‘enjoyed by the whole family,’ but it does contain an excessive amount of swearing (perhaps somewhere out there is a nice, police ‘clean’ version that kids could enjoy?!).  If you like you’re entertainment fun-filled and well-written, you can do much worse than spending a couple of hours in the company of a grumpy bounty hunter and his unwitting captive (oh, and it is a couple of hours long, but don’t worry – it never drags!).

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather