Midnight Run (1988)
Director: Martin Brest
Had I seen this before: No
Here is a list of movies that until very recently were all the same movie in my brain: Midnight Run, Midnight Express, The Running Man, Marathon Man. And I'll be honest, Lawnmower Man is sort of hanging around the edges of this situation as well. These are, I am guessing, fully distinct and individual films. But for a long time they were rattling around in my head as a sort of giant amorphous sci-fi action drama that does not interest me but seems to involve a man or perhaps several men running at night and/or mowing a lawn. Now imagine my surprise upon discovering that Midnight Run is in fact an action comedy starring Robert De Niro as a grumpy bounty hunter and Charles Grodin as an accountant who embezzled a great deal of money from a mob boss, and that it is approximately as violent and serious in tone as the movie Sister Act.
It also stars Dennis Farina wearing one of the strangest articles of clothing ever featured in a major motion picture, which was probably the deciding factor in whether to dedicate a post to this movie or not. There was a point when I thought to myself "I'm not sure they spend enough time in the Southwest for this one to count" but it was outweighed by "I need a place to talk about this...thing that Dennis Farina is wearing." It's like a shiny gray dress shirt, with a collar, that almost but doesn't exactly match his sharkskin pants. But then his entire mid-torso is overtaken by a section of Cliff Huxtable-esque sweater that sort of looks like a gray and black checkerboard with a white rope loosely tied in a knot in the shape of an upside-down pretzel underneath it. He's wearing this in scenes where he is establishing himself as a scary Mafia heavy, and although the movie is overall a comedy I think the outfit is legit? This is just where we were, sartorially, with gangsters by 1988? Which actually does make sense if you consider the continuum of mob fashion from The Godfather to The Sopranos--we've finally found the missing link and it's a knot in the shape of a pretzel on a section of sweater that I would have picked out from Mervyn's in second grade.*
Not to even mention the various outfits on my guy Joey Pants in this thing.**
Much as I was slightly surprised to realize, when watching 3:10 to Yuma, that I was sort of just watching Stagecoach again, I was slightly surprised to realize, when watching Midnight Run, that I was sort of just watching 3:10 to Yuma again. A man with a difficult past has to get a prisoner to a certain place by a certain time, with outside forces violently trying to stop him. In the process, the relationship between the two deepens, then changes entirely. At various points the prisoner attempts to sway the man by offering to pay more than his bounty in exchange for his release, but the man is steadfastly unwilling to abandon his principles. There is a young teen child that I have absolutely no use for. The prisoner is manipulative but strangely sexy.
No? Just me? Hard to say how much my positive reaction to this movie is just based on how much I adore the lord of deadpan Charles Grodin and the faces he makes. Well, really just that one face. But what a face! His silent but evident pain at being surrounded by humanity is deeply relatable. I must have seen The Great Muppet Caper at a very young age and for some reason took away a fascination with the blandly handsome, unsmiling villain that I have never been able to shake. I liked the surrounding movie but I loved watching Grodin be the most mild, boring pain in De Niro's ass at every turn. I'm confident that if Ben Wade started in on me and my brown eyes I would be like "okay man, whatever." But if Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas told he told me he couldn't fly due to his aviaphobia, acrophobia, and claustrophobia, I would believe him and arrange alternate transportation across the country. If he sternly insisted on checking on all the twenties in my till due to a rash of counterfeit bills being passed in the area, I would let him clean me out. We're not quite at Judy Maxwell levels of willing devotion, but we're in the ballpark. (I was going to apologize for devolving into thirstiness here but you know what? It's not my fault movies are full of quirkily charismatic people--as a matter of fact, I recently rewatched both Jaws and All That Jazz and you'd better hope I never have a reason to get going on Roy Scheider because whew what a smokeshow.)
I found the movie itself almost weirdly comforting, in that you very quickly know what kind of film you're in--a straight-down-the-line 80s action comedy (nothing too serious or graphic, one fake-looking punch will immediately knock a character out, it's rated R solely because of swearing, eventually the two leads absolutely must be handcuffed together, etc.). And Martin Brest does a good job as a director of assuring you that he has this thing under control, so you can just enjoy the ride. (Brest's filmography is absolutely wild by the way, including Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman and ending with Gigli. Gigli!!! He hasn't made a film since 2003! Now that Ben and J Lo are BACK BABY should we consider petitioning to release Martin Brest from director jail? Much to think about.)
Line I repeated quietly to myself: "I'm a white-collar criminal."
Is it under two hours: Not quite
In conclusion: This is not the most Southwestern of movies, since they go all the way from New York to Los Angeles, but one of the best gags--the attempted theft of a vehicle--takes place there, so we're counting it.
Crispy Buttermilk Fried Chicken from Food and Wine
"Why would you eat that?" The Duke asks De Niro's bounty hunter as he tears into a piece of fried chicken. "Why do something that you know is not good for you?"
"Why? Cause it tastes good."
Up next: The end of a trilogy and the end of our Southwest Summer Road Trip series
