Stay Tuned #50: Midnight Runaround

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Come on, Eileen,

Why you gotta give me the runaround?

You said it's a sure-fire way to speed things up,

But all it does is suh-low-ow me down.

Oh, and I'm also known as the Ticketmaster.

I haven't done a byline reference like this in awhile, so I thought I'd squeeze out two to make up for it: "Come On, Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners (because I'm doing Midnight Run May-hem this month) and "Runaround" by Blues Traveler (because, if you couldn't tell by the title of the post, I'm reviewing Midnight Runaround this week).

Please make Just the Ticket part of your midnight run by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, post your shortcuts to the airport in the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help with my loan repayment, 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.

Directed by Frank De Palma (no relation to fellow director Brian De Palma that I could tell) but also released in 1994 and having the same main cast as Another Midnight Run, Midnight Runaround wastes almost no time getting into some action, as Jack Walsh (the returning Christopher "Shooter McGavin" McDonald) struggles to apprehend a wrecking yard employee named Clyde (Donald Gibb, Ogre from the Revenge Of the Nerds movies), who puts up a "strong man who can withstand anything" fight and escapes to never be seen again. There's the usual, made-for-TV almost-cursing (but it's okay to say "son of a bitch"?), and a simple setup for Jack needing a skip to catch: he's behind on every bill and needs a gift for his daughter's birthday.

Touching on some continuity, there's a picture of his daughter on his desk, where she looks several years younger than in the original movie. This could be an old picture, considering how it had been a long time since he saw her when he visited his ex-wife in that one, or it could be a current picture, putting this trilogy back into prequel territory.

So desperate for money that he pawns his gun for two hundred dollars (which, in the mid-90s, could apparently pay six different bills with two dollars left over, according to low-budget Hollywood), but still being Jack Walsh, he instead goes to the local bar (where the bartender is Dick Miller) and throws it all away on a rival bondsman's betting pool.

Dorfler (Ed O'Ross), Eddie (Dan Hedaya), and Jerry (John Fleck) return, upping the comedic tone unnecessarily from the last movie by making Dorfler and Eddie cartoon villains and Jerry even more of a simpering idiot than he was before.

Jack has some convoluted story about needing up-front financing for a "legit pyramid scheme" that he tells so he can get two thousand dollars from Eddie to throw into the betting pool, and it's off to Osage County, Oklahoma, to recover Dale (Homicide regular Kyle Secor), a redneck adult-for-teen with commitment and financial issues of his own. Jack soon discovers that Dale has an entire town of darkly absurd, gun-toting redneck stereotypes backing him up, and predictable, city vs. country fish-out-of-water shenanigans ensue. We also have such artifacts of the time as beepers, realistic-looking toy guns, and people being able to carry shotguns, automatic weapons, and sword-sized machetes into public places without batting an eye because it's the South. In the end, it's kind of an homage to the first movie with some TV episode plot structure thrown in where Jack learns a lesson about cynicism and financial responsibility, and bonds (bail enforcement pun not intended) with Dale before letting him go. But then Dale decides to turn himself in, Jack gets enough money to pay off everyone he's been scamming and stringing along all movie (because, again, you could pay off six different utilities with two hundred dollars back then and have money left over) and buy a plane ticket to give his daughter her present in person. And because this franchise can't decide what order it happens in, Jack visits Dale in prison to get dating advice, on account of him "not having a date since Bush was President" (back when you didn't have to ask which Bush), meaning that either the woman he picked up before the end of Another Midnight Run didn't turn into a date, or Runaround happened first.

Like Another Midnight Run, there are some decent laughs to be had here. But it's clear how try-hard the writers were being, and the plot becomes such a scrambled mess that it requires a second watch to figure out how much, or little, of it actually matters. I appreciate the effort to get away from the repetitive structure of the first two and recapture the emotional stakes of the first, but Runaround ended up feeling like a lesser entry anyway. At least, that was my experience.

D

Please make Just the Ticket part of your midnight run by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, post your shortcuts to the airport in the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help with my loan repayment, 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.

Stay Tuned as I close out Midnight Run May-hem next week with Midnight Run For Your Life: Helium Edition.

Ticketmaster,

Bailing Out.