Midnight Run (1988)

Before his face was plastered all over the Hollywood Wall of Shame for being the guy who made the infamous Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez bomb, Gigli, director Martin Brest made some fine movies including the thoroughly entertaining action comedy Midnight Run.

The film stars Robert De Niro as Jack Walsh, an ex-Chicago cop forced to make a living as a low level bounty hunter. He gets the job of a lifetime when his bail bondsman hires him to bring in Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a tax accountant who stole $15 million from the mob and donated it to charity.

While the Duke is easy to find, getting him from New York City to Los Angeles to make good on his $500,000 bond proves to be a lot more challenging for Jack to pull off. The FBI is after him. The cops are after him. The mob is after him. There’s even another bounty hunter after him.

Brest, who also directed Beverly Hills Cop, knows how to put an action sequence together and he pulls out all the stops to make the duo’s cross country adventure a full scale stunt extravaganza complete with lots of car crashes, shoot outs, fist fights and aerial stunts. What makes the film work, however, is the acting. De Niro and Grodin are great together, and the supporting cast is a who’s who of great character actors, including the always enjoyable Dennis Farina as the acid-tongued mob boss Jimmy Serrano.

Starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin.
IMDB Site.