Movies - Midnight Run

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	Movies - Midnight Run

:For the Konami Arcade Racing game, see Midnight Run (video game). Midnight Run is a 1988
American action/comedy motion picture starring Robert De Niro
as a bounty hunter.
Principal cast:

Robert De Niro
: Jack Walsh

Charles Grodin
: Jonathan Mardukas

Yaphet Kotto
: FBI Agent Alonzo Mosely

John Ashton : Marvin Dorfler

Dennis Farina
: Jimmy Serrano

Joe Pantoliano
: Eddie Moscone

Award nominations

Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Robert De Niro
)

Storyline
Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Grodin
) is an accountant who embezzled $15 million from Las Vegas gangster Jimmy Serrano (Farina
) and skipped bail. He is hiding in New York when his Los Angeles bail bondsman, Eddie Moscone (Pantoliano
) hires Jack Walsh (De Niro
), a former policeman living rough, to bring the accountant back to L.A. "It'll be a piece of cake, get in, get out," he promises on a Monday morning. "It's an easy gig, it's a midnight run." To get the $100,000 bounty, Walsh needs to get Mardukas back to L.A. before midnight on Friday, at which time Moscone forfeits the bail money he put up.

The FBI, led by the eternally put-upon Special Agent Alonzo Mosely (Kotto
), want Mardukas under arrest to build their case against Serrano. Serrano, meanwhile, knows that Mardukas has access to financial information that could lead to his conviction, and has no intention of allowing him to live long enough to turn government evidence.

After tracing and grabbing Mardukas in Manhattan, Walsh is unable to take Mardukas to L.A. by plane due to the latter's very pronounced fear of flying, which gets them thrown off their transcontinental flight, and sets up the rest of the plot. The pair embark on a wild cross-country chase, relying on various unreliable modes of transportation, all the while dodging the FBI, Serrano's goons, and rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler, hired by Moscone as insurance. Walsh and Mardukas bicker constantly, a by-product of the combination of Walsh's rough-hewn personality and Mardukas' habit of nagging.

Much of the movie involves Mardukas' sincere effort to uncover the truth about his captor, a man he suspects is actually a decent guy, beneath the violent behavior and ten pack a day cigarette habit. In fact, Walsh was a former Chicago detective who refused to go on the take, and got drummed out of the force and driven out of Chicago. His wife ended up remarrying the lieutenant who fired him, and he hasn't seen his little girl since she was an infant. It turns out the gangster responsible for "the payroll" was Jimmy Serrano.

Mardukas' character is a bit of a cipher, though he does exhibit a real knack for pushing Walsh's buttons. Walsh, on the other hand, turns out to be the moral center of the film, a true anti-hero. Meanwhile, the narrative propels Walsh and Mardukas toward their inevitable showdown with Serrano.
Themes
There are many themes in the film, but the main one is the clash between the rough Walsh and the middle-class Mardukas. Discussions about diet, smoking, financial responsibility and other topics spin out of control as prejudices fly.

There are several running jokes in the film:

Jack makes fun of the FBI agents' sunglasses, at one point calling Mosely "Agent Foster Grant."

On the bus on Wednesday morning, the Duke tells Jack that they should visit Jack's ex-wife Gail and daughter Denise in Chicago. Jack says he can't, because "I'm not exactly popular with the Chicago police deparment." For the next 12 hours, the Duke keeps asking, "Why aren't you popular with the Chicago police department?" before Jack finally tells him about the Serrano connection. But because Serrano is the man trying to get the Duke killed, it takes until the freight-train ride on Friday morning before Jack admits that Serrano is also the mob boss who ran him out of Chicago, a fact that Moscone mentions in the film's first ten minutes.

Agent Mosely keeps stealing Dorfler's cigarettes. At one point, Dorfler says, "You should quit, it'd be cheaper for both of us." Dorfler's last line, as he's being led away by the FBI, is, "Watch your cigarettes with this guy, Jack."

Moscone's assistant, Jerry Geisler (Jack Kehoe), keeps telling him that he's going out for donuts. What he really does is go to a pay-phone and call Serrano's henchman Tony Darvo (Richard Foronjy).

Darvo is hampered in his efforts, first to get Jack to accept a $1 million payoff instead of Moscone's $100,000, then to kill Jack and the Duke, by his dimwitted sidekick, Joey Ribuffo (Robert Miranda).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Midnight Run ]

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