Just the Ticket #144: Midnight Run

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster

The title of this week's movie up for review (and its three made-for-TV sequels, with a feature sequel/reboot in the works as of 2021), a "midnight run" refers to a quick stop at the local convenience store to pick up beer, cigarettes, or snacks to satisfy those fourthmeal cravings. It can also refer to when someone suddenly abandons their home or business in the middle of the night, or in the case of Marquette University, a charitable program by the campus ministry where they used to drive around at night delivering food and amenities to the unsheltered homeless.

Please remember to make Just the Ticket part of your midnight run by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, lazily write profanity into the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help me post bail, and follow me from coast to coast on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

Feeling like anything but, 1988's Midnight Run was directed by Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop, Meet Joe Black, and Gigli) based on a script by George Gallo (The Whole Ten Yards, Columbus Circle, and the story for Bad Boys), and features an uncharacteristically stock-sounding musical score by Batman and Spider-Man composer Danny Elfman.

It follows Jack Walsh (Robert DeNiro, after auditioning for Tom Hanks' role in Big because he wanted to branch out from serious, gangster movie roles after The Untouchables), a disgraced cop-turned-bounty hunter tasked by his cheapskate boss (The Sopranos' Joe "Joey Pants" Pantoliano) with bringing a white collar Robin Hood, nicknamed "The Duke (Beethoven dad Charles Grodin, in a role that almost went to Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, and Cher), from New York to LA on a hundred thousand dollar bond. Standing in his way are a rival bounty hunter (whom I feel sorry for based on how often he gets tricked into getting punched in the face, played by Beverly Hills Cop semi-regular John Ashton), a crime boss whom Jack has personal history with (played in a standout supporting role by Get Shorty's Dennis Farina), and a stoic FBI agent (Alien star Yaphet Kotto, who said the director's deteriorating nutritional state and obsession with multiple-take filming made the experience miserable and joyless despite the finished product coming off so funny).

Along the way, we get to hear "Fuck" way more often than should be competently scripted and see such 80s and early 90s relics as public smoking indoors, a complete lack of travel security, people being able to do whatever they want with each other's credit cards over the phone with no authentication procedures, vehicles exploding if you shoot them in one place enough times, being able to call collect on a pay phone without providing the recipient's number, being able to jump from a moving train unscathed, characters knowing where each other are at all times because the plot demands it, and casual racism and homophobia.

So, yeah; Midnight Run is one of those antagonistic buddy movies where the blue collar hero and the white collar criminal who hate each other have to team up to get from Point A to Point Z with relatively incompetent hindrances following and interrupting them wherever they go. It's a done-to-death premise that feels even more like a beaten equine corpse because of the two-plus-hour runtime, frequent tonal shifts, atrocious pacing, repetitive structure, nonsensical twist, and humor that feels more Gigli than Beverly Hills Cop. The emotional bits land (like Jack's interactions with his ex-wife and estranged daughter, and the final scene with Jack and The Duke) and the action sequences are pretty good for the time and budget. But the first hour was a struggle. I had to watch Midnight Run in multiple sittings, fell asleep with twenty-eight minutes left (that's after the big finale car chase, mind you), and kept checking the progress bar to see how much longer it would take to get through the movie. Screw phobias; taking a plane from New York to LA would have been so much better than walking.

D+

There are three more of these to review for Midnight Run May-hem, so please make Just the Ticket part of your midnight run by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, lazily write profanity into the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help me post bail, and follow me from coast to coast on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Bailing Out.