Film Forum

(1988, Martin Brest) Bounty hunter Robert De Niro is tasked with delivering Charles Grodin’s bail-hopping, crooked accountant “The Duke” from New York to the hands of an L.A. bail bondsman… only trouble is, the Mob and the Feds want a piece of him too. With Yaphet Kotto (Alien, Blue Collar), Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos), Dennis Farina (Get Shorty), and Philip Baker Hall (Curb Your Enthusiasm). From the director of Beverly Hills Cop. DCP. Approx. 126 min.

Reviews

“Funny, unpredictable and refreshingly adult.”
– Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“An expert, sometimes murderously funny chase comedy… (these) aren't the kind of actors you'd normally expect to see together. De Niro has a genius for full-blooded psychology and emotionalism; Grodin is a comic specialist in white-collar neurotics who tends to dance over his material lightly, ironically. But in movies, as in life, opposites sometimes attract. De Niro and Grodin play characters as antagonistic as their acting styles. There isn't a single performance in Midnight Run that doesn't have a pulse, that doesn't show the actors at their best or near-best, especially De Niro.”
– Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

“Graciously filmed by Martin Brest and imaginatively performed by Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin, [Midnight Run] yields a steady stream of little discoveries and surprising insights that add up to some uncommonly rich comedy… It is impossible to describe the fine, fleeting shadings that De Niro brings to a blunt, obscenity-laden line. Those rapid, microscopic inflections of joy and despair, pride and anguish, are a large part of the reason that movies exist. These inflections are too small for the stage and too delicate for television. Brest’s talent lies in his ability to elicit those moments and to find the precise framing and editing necessary to give them maximum impact. It isn’t a flashy style of direction, but its inconspicuous grace is in the best tradition of American filmmaking: It is the skill of Howard Hawks and Leo McCarey.”
– Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader