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

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 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).

Origins

After completing The Untouchables (1987 film), De Niro wanted to try something different. He wanted to do a comedy and pursued the lead role in Penny Marshall's film, Big (film). Marshall was interested but the studio was not and the role went to Tom Hanks. Martin Brest, who directed Beverly Hills Cop, had found another script by George Gallo in the same vein -- one that blended elements of comedy and action. He sent it to De Niro and was very up front with the actor: Midnight Run was a commercial film.

Paramount Pictures was originally interested in backing Midnight Run, but they wanted a big name star opposite De Niro in order to improve the film's chances at the box office. Their production executives suggested that the Mardukas character be changed to a woman and wanted Cher for the role in the hopes that she would provide some "sexual overtones."

Brest rejected the idea and so Paramount suggested teaming De Niro up with Robin Williams. Williams was a big star in his own right and eager to get the role. He even offered to do an audition for Brest. However, Brest was impressed by Charles Grodin's audition with De Niro. The director felt that there was a real chemistry between the two actors. As a result, Paramount backed out and Universal Studios became interested in the project.

Trivia

Robin Williams and Bruce Willis are reputed to have been considered for Grodin's role. When Willis was turned down, he took the part of another troubled cop, John McClane, in Die Hard. The two films opened the same week.

In bounty hunter language, the phrase "midnight run" simply refers to something that is relatively easy.

Jack and the Duke take Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited train out of New York's Grand Central Terminal. This train, which goes up the Hudson River to Albany, runs across New York State and on to Buffalo and Cleveland before terminating at Union Station in Chicago, replaced the 20th Century Limited on the old New York Central Railroad. Amtrak no longer operates trains out of Grand Central, although it maintains a ticket office there. Today, the Lake Shore Limited starts at New York's Pennsylvania Station before heading up the Hudson.

Three TV-movies based on the film were produced in 1994, starring Christopher McDonald as Jack Walsh, Dan Hedaya as Eddie Moscone, Ed O'Ross as Marvin Dorfler and John Fleck as Jerry Geisler. These are the only characters carried over from the film. The TV-movies were not well-received.

The Jerry Geisler character was named for a Hollywood attorney in the 1940s and 1950s, whose clients included Errol Flynn and Marilyn Monroe.

As Jack uncuffs the Duke on the train, the Duke says, "Thanks, 'cause they're starting to cut into my wrists." Grodin wasn't kidding: He has permanent scars resulting from the real handcuffs he had to wear for a great deal of the film.

The novelization of the film was written by Paul Monette. There are significant differences:

In addition to his other flaws, Jack is portrayed as becoming increasingly lecherous in middle age. This aspect of his character is ignored in the film.
Marvin Dorfler is renamed Max Dorfler.
Several references are made to Max Dorfler's bad hairpiece, while in the movie, Marvin Dorfler does not hide his baldness.
Dorfler is killed by Tony Darvo before the climactic scene at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
As a result of Dorfler's death, the final scene is much less contentious than in the film.
In the novel, Moscone first offers Jack $25,000 to bring the Duke in. He raises it to $40,000 and finally to $50,000 before Jack demands $100,000 and gets it. In the film, Eddie, desperate to keep the $450,000 he posted, begins to say he'll give Jack $40,000, then ups it to $50,000. In both novel and film, however, when Jack and the Duke do not arrive at Los Angeles International Airport on time, Moscone calls Dorfler and says, "If you bring him in, I'll give you what I was gonna give Walsh: $25,000."
The novel, unlike the film, explains why Jimmy Serrano left Chicago for Las Vegas: Although both cities have an infamous history of organized crime, there is more money and more respect to be made in Vegas, and Serrano considers leaving his post as Chicago's top drug kingpin and becoming the biggest boss in Vegas to be a "promotion." He lives in the top floor of the tallest casino-hotel in town, at a time when there were few real skyscrapers in Vegas. He sees another casino-hotel under construction, which will end up taller than his, and decides that someone will have to be hurt because of it. Since the film's 1988 release, several Vegas structures have been built much higher than the old hotels.

German Title of the film translates to "5 Days To Midnight"

Taglines

"Monday: Escape with their lives from New York. Tuesday: Impersonate F.B.I. agents in Chicago. Wednesday: Steal plane in New Mexico. Thursday: Almost kill each other by accident. Friday: Almost kill each other on purpose."
"Charles Grodin embezzled $15 million from the mob. The mob wants him dead. The FBI wants him alive. Robert DeNiro just wants him to shut up."
"Robert De Niro has to get the FBI off his case, the mob off his trail, and Charles Grodin off his back!"

External link

Sequels

Midnight Run – 5 Tage bis Mitternacht | Midnight Run

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