Midnight Run
- Director: Martin Brest
- United States, 1988
This is a buddy-road movie, but it’s sharp enough and clever enough to outrun just about all of the chasers in what is a horribly overpopulated subgenre.
Bounty hunter ex-cop De Niro has to deliver mob accountant Grodin to the bailbondsman within five days to pick up an hundred thousand dollars and thereby fulfill his slightly dubious dream of opening a coffee shop, but the FBI wants the accountant as a witness and the mob wants him dead. When you can summarise a movie as easily as that, you know it’s got to be pretty straightforward.
There are some charming moments along the way though and these are what lift Midnight Run out of the pit of mediocrity: the bounty hunter’s reunion with his ex-wife and daughter after nine years because he’s strapped for cash is wonderfully played.
