Midnight Run
An accountant is chased by bounty hunters, the FBI, and the Mafia after jumping bail.
- Director: Martin Brest
- Genre:Action / Adventure / Comedy / Crime / Thriller
- Runtime:126 minutes
Cast
Robert De Niro : Jack Walsh
Charles Grodin : Jonathan ‘The Duke’ Mardukas
Yaphet Kotto : FBI Agent Alonzo Mosely
John Ashton : Marvin Dorfler
Dennis Farina : Jimmy Serrano
Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Grodin) is an accountant who embezzled $15 million from Las Vegas gangster Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina) and skipped bail. He is hiding in New York when his Los Angeles bail bondsman, Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano), hires bounty hunter Jack Walsh (De Niro) to bring the accountant in. To get the $100,000 bounty, Jack needs to get “The Duke” back to L.A. before midnight on Friday, or Eddie forfeits the $450,000 bail and faces bankruptcy.
The FBI, led by Special Agent Alonzo Mosely (Yaphet Kotto), wants Mardukas under arrest to build their case against Serrano. Alonzo warns Jack not to interfere with his plans, but Jack, under the pretense of accepting, pays no attention, and instead pinches Mosely’s identification. Serrano, meanwhile, knows that Mardukas has access to financial information that could lead to his conviction, and intends to have him killed before he can testify against him in open court.
After apprehending Mardukas in Manhattan, Jack is unable to take him to L.A. by plane due to Mardukas’ professed fear of flying, which gets them thrown off their transcontinental flight. The pair embark on a wild cross-country chase (with Mardukas even temporarily piloting a plane, proving that his fear of flying was a ruse), relying on various unreliable modes of transportation, all the while dodging the FBI and Serrano’s henchmen Tony (Richard Foronjy) and Joey (Robert Miranda). Moscone also hires rival bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton) as insurance in case Jack is unable to deliver Mardukas, but offers him $25,000, claiming he offered the same to Walsh.
Throughout their journey, Walsh and The Duke bicker constantly, due to the clash 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 person he suspects is actually a decent man beneath his cynical and embittered exterior. He eventually learns that Jack was a former Chicago undercover detective who refused to go on the take of a heroin dealer he was building a case against. He was then drummed out of the force after being framed for heroin possession by corrupt colleagues and driven out of Chicago. His wife ended up remarrying one of his colleagues, now a captain, whom Jack insinuates is one of the corrupt members of the force. Jack has not seen his daughter since she was a little girl, and has since then lost all faith in the law, explaining his profession as a bounty hunter. The heroin dealer responsible for Jack’s framing was Jimmy Serrano himself. Jack, for his part, wants to see the job done so he can retire and open a coffee shop with his promised $100,000 bounty, aware that like this, he will most likely be helping Serrano avoid prison. He also has a sense of professional pride and refuses a bribe from Mardukas, and a large cash offering from Serrano’s camp in exchange for turning Mardukas over to them. Read more
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