Which is not to say that it isn't enjoyable. "Midnight Run," which is director Martin Brest's first film since the mega-hit "Beverly Hills Cop," is a well-made chase-buddy-road-comedy-adventure movie that enthusiastically invokes every cliche and convention of all those genres. Think of it as a cross between "The Last Detail," "Stir Crazy," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and, especially for its use of handcuffs, "The Defiant Ones."
De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a defrocked cop who now works for bail bondsmen in Los Angeles. For a fee, he tracks down and retrieves bad guys who've jumped bail. I would have enjoyed seeing a movie about this strange subculture, but ''Midnight Run" is not it.
Almost immediately after Walsh's profession is established, he gets a new assignment: to round up an accountant named Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin), who has embezzled $15 million from the mob, been arrested and jumped bail. Walsh finds Mardukas in New York with absurd ease, and the film supplies a fairly hokey reason why he can't fly his catch back to L.A. So, ground transportation it is, and before the movie is over this has included not only
trains (both passenger and freight) and automobiles, but jeeps, buses, trucks and shoe leather as well.
Walsh has to contend with more than logistics. Now that he's tracked Mardukas down, the FBI (in the person of Yaphet Kotto), the mob (Dennis Farina) and a rival bounty hunter (John Ashton) all try to take this prize catch away. Brest and screenwriter George Gallo juggle these diverse elements well, and there are a fair number of surprises and exciting scenes.
But what's Robert De Niro doing in this movie? De Niro's intensity and the completely standard nature of the character make for an odd friction that may be of scientific interest to the actor's fans, but doesn't really fit in the film. Equally unsuccessful is the pairing of De Niro and Grodin, whose characters initially hate each other but come to be, yes, friends. Brest presumably thought the two actors had chemistry. They don't. Too many of their scenes together have the feel of improvisations that have gone on far too long.
As I say, though, none of it is painful to watch.
*
MIDNIGHT RUN: An action comedy starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Directed by Martin Brest. Screenplay by George Gallo. Running time: 127 minutes. A Universal release. At area theaters. Parental guide: Rated R. Lots of profanity.
