Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas: Jack, you're a grown man. You're in control of your own words.
Jack Walsh: You're goddamn right I am. Now here come two words for you: Shut the fuck up.
Why start my critical analysis of my favorite movies with 1988's "Midnight Run"? Simple...it was on cable the other day, and it's the freshest film in my mind. But also because not much has been written about this buddy-road comedy which I personally think belongs on any list of the the best films of the 1980's.
The film stars Robert De Niro as Jack Walsh, a tough bounty hunter who used to be a Chicago cop. Now his home base is L.A., where he'll make 100-grand if he tracks down and brings back Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), an accountant who's on the run after stealing $15 million from mobster Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina).
Jack finds the Duke in New York and has 5 days to bring him across the country. (Jack is told it'll be an easy gig, a "midnight run".) Of course, it's hardly that easy. Through a series of adventures by plane, train, and automobile, the two men form an uneasy alliance as they try to avoid the FBI (led by agent Alonzo Mosley, played with steely-eyed intensity by the gravel-voiced Yaphet Kotto); two of Serrano's goons; and rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton), who's put on Jack's trail by the agitated bondsman who put up the Duke's bond.
Jack also has to put up with the Duke's constant yammering, which is one of the things that makes the film truly special. The Duke is some piece of work: he never shuts up, offers his opinion on everything, and generally drives Jack up a wall. The chemistry between De Niro and Grodin is dynamite. It's one thing to have a character drive another one crazy; it's another to make them work like a long-time comedy team. (Originally, Robin Williams was set to play the Duke, but apparently director Martin Brest liked the way De Niro and Grodin worked together. It was a gamble, but it paid off beautifully, if not at the box office.) Their chemistry is crucial to the classic "litmus configuration" scene, reportedly improvised, where the two men walk into a bar and steal some money by posing as federal agents on the trail of counterfeit bills. Grodin and De Niro play off each other like two old pros who've worked together for years.
The screenplay by George Gallo is a model of narrative efficiency, character development and dialogue, at least as far as action films go. First, narrative. The plot is always moving forward, never slowing down for any bits of business that don't matter. Just about every scene contains either new information that changes the characters' (and, by extension, the audience's) perceptions of what's happening, or some offbeat character touch that deepens our understanding of the people involved.
For example, the opening sequence brilliantly sets the movies action-comedy tone, the relationship between two characters, and a running gag that is integral to building the suspense of the movie's finale all at once. After barely escaping a buckshot shampoo from a shotgun-wielding bail jumper, Jack is on the verge of capturing his prize when Dorfler gets to the man first. As they argue over who will take the bail jumper in, Jack points behind Dorfler, yells "Marvin!", and knocks Dorfler out when Marvin turns to look at...nothing. This gag will be repeated at least twice more before paying off in an unexpected way at the end.
Every character in "Midnight Run" is sharply drawn, even down to Mosley's two assistants. But what really makes them special is Gallo's attention to detail as they change. There's a scene where the Duke convinces Jack to go see the wife and daughter he left behind in Chicago years earlier, telling Jack "this will be really good for you". After seeing his grown-up daughter, and realizing what he's lost, Jack's treatment of the Duke is much different than it had been in the earlier part of the film. (There's a shot outside Jack's old house when he lifts the Duke's coat into a waiting car before closing the door...a brief moment of kindness he probably never would have considered earlier.)
Finally, dialogue. "Midnight Run" has some of the choicest lines ever written for an action movie. I'm not talking about one-liners, though it does have its share of those; I mean actual fast-paced conversation of the kind rarely heard in movies nowadays. The lines that led off this post are just the tip of the iceberg. Jack and the Duke sometimes talk for 5 minutes straight, an eternity in movie time, but a joy for purveyors of great words. And even when they're machine gunning dialogue at each other, there's time for a zinger or two, as when the Duke tells Jack he suffers from aviaphobia.
Jonathan Mardukas: It means I can't fly. I also suffer from acrophobia and claustrophobia.
Jack Walsh: I'll tell you what: if you don't cooperate, you're gonna suffer from "fistophobia".
But to call "Midnight Run" simply a "buddy action comedy" does Gallo and Brest a great disservice. What makes "Midnight Run" so great is how it upends the basic rule of the buddy movie without calling attention to itself. Think about most buddy movies, like "Lethal Weapon" to take one example. They follow a pretty standard formula: two wildly different people are thrown together under trying circumstances. At first they share a mutual dislike, bordering on hate, for each other. But slowly, they develop a grudging affection for one another, before finally becoming, well, buddies. By the end of the film, they like each other, so much so that in some cases you half expect these new best friends to walk off hand in hand.
"Midnight Run" changes this formula ever so slightly that you may not even realize it at first glance. Sure, it throws together two wildly different people, puts them through trying circumstances, and ends with them feeling differently about each other. But the difference is that at the end of "Midnight Run", one can't say for certain if Jack and The Duke have grown to like each other. Certainly they respect one another, but one can't imagine them ever paling around like, say, Riggs and Murtagh in the "Weapon" films. It's that newfound, mutual respect but lack of affection that adds immeasurable poignancy to De Niro and Grodin's final scene at LAX. You know that while these two men's personalities don't, and probably never would, mix, the fact that they've grown together, become better people together, and respect each other for the new people they are is worth more than if they were to just become good friends.
I first saw "Midnight Run" on opening day when I was 13 years old, and it's stayed with me ever since. It may not be the deepest movie ever made, but it sure is one of the most entertaining.
(A word about the music: Danny Elfman's fabulous, brassy-but-funky score, is one of the great soundtracks of the last 25 years. The music works hand in hand with the action, propelling everything forward with great urgency, while laying back with a groovy bass line when we need time to catch our breath. It's a brilliant, unusual piece of work by the man best known for scoring Tim Burton's fantasies. )
Jack Walsh: You're goddamn right I am. Now here come two words for you: Shut the fuck up.
Why start my critical analysis of my favorite movies with 1988's "Midnight Run"? Simple...it was on cable the other day, and it's the freshest film in my mind. But also because not much has been written about this buddy-road comedy which I personally think belongs on any list of the the best films of the 1980's.
The film stars Robert De Niro as Jack Walsh, a tough bounty hunter who used to be a Chicago cop. Now his home base is L.A., where he'll make 100-grand if he tracks down and brings back Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), an accountant who's on the run after stealing $15 million from mobster Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina).
Jack finds the Duke in New York and has 5 days to bring him across the country. (Jack is told it'll be an easy gig, a "midnight run".) Of course, it's hardly that easy. Through a series of adventures by plane, train, and automobile, the two men form an uneasy alliance as they try to avoid the FBI (led by agent Alonzo Mosley, played with steely-eyed intensity by the gravel-voiced Yaphet Kotto); two of Serrano's goons; and rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton), who's put on Jack's trail by the agitated bondsman who put up the Duke's bond.
Jack also has to put up with the Duke's constant yammering, which is one of the things that makes the film truly special. The Duke is some piece of work: he never shuts up, offers his opinion on everything, and generally drives Jack up a wall. The chemistry between De Niro and Grodin is dynamite. It's one thing to have a character drive another one crazy; it's another to make them work like a long-time comedy team. (Originally, Robin Williams was set to play the Duke, but apparently director Martin Brest liked the way De Niro and Grodin worked together. It was a gamble, but it paid off beautifully, if not at the box office.) Their chemistry is crucial to the classic "litmus configuration" scene, reportedly improvised, where the two men walk into a bar and steal some money by posing as federal agents on the trail of counterfeit bills. Grodin and De Niro play off each other like two old pros who've worked together for years.
The screenplay by George Gallo is a model of narrative efficiency, character development and dialogue, at least as far as action films go. First, narrative. The plot is always moving forward, never slowing down for any bits of business that don't matter. Just about every scene contains either new information that changes the characters' (and, by extension, the audience's) perceptions of what's happening, or some offbeat character touch that deepens our understanding of the people involved.
For example, the opening sequence brilliantly sets the movies action-comedy tone, the relationship between two characters, and a running gag that is integral to building the suspense of the movie's finale all at once. After barely escaping a buckshot shampoo from a shotgun-wielding bail jumper, Jack is on the verge of capturing his prize when Dorfler gets to the man first. As they argue over who will take the bail jumper in, Jack points behind Dorfler, yells "Marvin!", and knocks Dorfler out when Marvin turns to look at...nothing. This gag will be repeated at least twice more before paying off in an unexpected way at the end.
Every character in "Midnight Run" is sharply drawn, even down to Mosley's two assistants. But what really makes them special is Gallo's attention to detail as they change. There's a scene where the Duke convinces Jack to go see the wife and daughter he left behind in Chicago years earlier, telling Jack "this will be really good for you". After seeing his grown-up daughter, and realizing what he's lost, Jack's treatment of the Duke is much different than it had been in the earlier part of the film. (There's a shot outside Jack's old house when he lifts the Duke's coat into a waiting car before closing the door...a brief moment of kindness he probably never would have considered earlier.)
Finally, dialogue. "Midnight Run" has some of the choicest lines ever written for an action movie. I'm not talking about one-liners, though it does have its share of those; I mean actual fast-paced conversation of the kind rarely heard in movies nowadays. The lines that led off this post are just the tip of the iceberg. Jack and the Duke sometimes talk for 5 minutes straight, an eternity in movie time, but a joy for purveyors of great words. And even when they're machine gunning dialogue at each other, there's time for a zinger or two, as when the Duke tells Jack he suffers from aviaphobia.
Jonathan Mardukas: It means I can't fly. I also suffer from acrophobia and claustrophobia.
Jack Walsh: I'll tell you what: if you don't cooperate, you're gonna suffer from "fistophobia".
But to call "Midnight Run" simply a "buddy action comedy" does Gallo and Brest a great disservice. What makes "Midnight Run" so great is how it upends the basic rule of the buddy movie without calling attention to itself. Think about most buddy movies, like "Lethal Weapon" to take one example. They follow a pretty standard formula: two wildly different people are thrown together under trying circumstances. At first they share a mutual dislike, bordering on hate, for each other. But slowly, they develop a grudging affection for one another, before finally becoming, well, buddies. By the end of the film, they like each other, so much so that in some cases you half expect these new best friends to walk off hand in hand.
"Midnight Run" changes this formula ever so slightly that you may not even realize it at first glance. Sure, it throws together two wildly different people, puts them through trying circumstances, and ends with them feeling differently about each other. But the difference is that at the end of "Midnight Run", one can't say for certain if Jack and The Duke have grown to like each other. Certainly they respect one another, but one can't imagine them ever paling around like, say, Riggs and Murtagh in the "Weapon" films. It's that newfound, mutual respect but lack of affection that adds immeasurable poignancy to De Niro and Grodin's final scene at LAX. You know that while these two men's personalities don't, and probably never would, mix, the fact that they've grown together, become better people together, and respect each other for the new people they are is worth more than if they were to just become good friends.
I first saw "Midnight Run" on opening day when I was 13 years old, and it's stayed with me ever since. It may not be the deepest movie ever made, but it sure is one of the most entertaining.
(A word about the music: Danny Elfman's fabulous, brassy-but-funky score, is one of the great soundtracks of the last 25 years. The music works hand in hand with the action, propelling everything forward with great urgency, while laying back with a groovy bass line when we need time to catch our breath. It's a brilliant, unusual piece of work by the man best known for scoring Tim Burton's fantasies. )
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