Midnight Run (1988) Review

Jack Walsh a former cop and now bounty hunter must get an accountant back to LA to get the reward. But other bounty hunters, the FBI and the Mafia are all after him as well!

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I have to admit that when I first started watching this film I wasn’t really sure if I was going to get into it or not. It just didn’t feel as though it was going to be very engaging, oh how I was wrong about that! De Niro and Grodin are absolutely fantastic together and creates a very unlikely friendship considering the situations the characters are in.

Jack Walsh is trying to get the accountant known as the Duke back to LA after being told by Eddie Moscone who hired him that it would be a very simple job and an easy midnight run, that was not the case when the FBI and the Mob both want him as well. Which means it was not a simple job and midnight run at all, with many forms of transport being used to attempt to get back to LA when the initial flying plan did not work out.

I became enthralled in the story as it all unfolded mainly because the characters were likeable and you wanted them both to succeed. But was that actually possible when one was collecting money for taking the other somewhere? The film is a lot more than that though, it is about an unlikely friendship that is formed between the two men. How by just spending all that time together they get to know each other and try their very best to help the other out with life choices.

I thought the performances were pretty well brilliant from the leading pair, even if I couldn’t work out where I recognised Grodin from throughout the film. The answer to that is he’s the Dad in Beethoven! Yes, seriously that is where I know him from! Anyway he was very good in the role and so was De Niro, both had to be considering the amount of screen time they have together. The mixture of the story with them and the comedy aspects are certainly what made this film very watchable and something I would easily watch again in the future.

Currently available on Netflix UK so well worth spending the time watching to well remember the times when Robert De Niro was in a decent film. Let’s face it that rarely happens now with the horrendous comedies that he has been in the past few years. He was his old standard character in this one but with the touch of humour, something that was really good to watch.

A nice surprise of a film after initially being unsure if it was for me or not, but I gave it more of a chance and got totally into the film. Isn’t it great when a film manages to do that? I certainly think so and pleased that I have now added this to my watched list!