Whatever spark Brest saw in that audition, however, was there on the screen. Grodin wasn’t a box office draw, and he was famously difficult to work with – I once attended a screening of the film that was followed by a Q&A with Grodin, who (when he wasn’t trying to change the subject to the advocacy work he does on behalf of non-violent criminal offenders) told multiple stories of on-set feuds, all of them painting him as the victim. At that point, Paramount abandoned the project altogether and it wound up at Universal, whose executives approved the unconventional casting. Brest said no to that, and to having Robin Williams play the part, because he’d been so dazzled by Grodin’s audition opposite De Niro. But the studio wanted to tweak George Gallo’s script to make the Duke a woman (the Duchess?) played by Cher, hoping to generate some sexual tension. Paramount was originally set to make it as director Martin Brest’s big follow-up to Beverly Hills Cop. De Niro, who had been looking to do a comedy after a 15-year run as Hollywood’s most intense method actor, only took the role as a consolation prize when he lost out to Tom Hanks for the lead in Big.
BUDDY MOVIES MOVIE
The movie gives disgraced ex-cop Jack five days to bring the Duke from New York to LA to collect a big reward that will allow him to open up a coffee shop, while the Mob accountant tries to avoid being murdered in prison by drug dealer Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina, in the best performance of his career), from whom he stole $15 million to give to charity. It’s a team-up that nearly didn’t happen. But there’s something special about the bond between Jack and the Duke, and the onscreen chemistry between the two stars, that elevates their pairing even above their contemporaries. The 1980s were a glorious period for buddy movies featuring abundant mayhem: 48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon, The Blues Brothers, Running Scared and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, to name just a few of the best buddy films ever. Yet all that ultimately matters – and makes the movie a classic worth revisiting on the 30th anniversary of its release – are two other words: Walsh and Duke.
Like Jack’s promised two-word insult to the Duke, it runs to excess. The film clocks in at two hours and seven minutes (an eternity by the action comedy standards of the time), features half the character actors worth their salt circa 1988 and includes extended riffs on a variety of food stuffs: chorizo and eggs, Lyonnaise potatoes, cream soda and fried chicken. They get involved in three car chases and multiple gunfights Jack shoots a helicopter out of the sky with a pistol. They are being pursued at all times by a cadre of FBI agents, a kingpin’s henchmen and a rival bounty hunter. Over the course of Midnight Run, bounty hunter Jack Walsh ( Robert De Niro) and fugitive accountant Jonathan “Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin) travel over 3000 miles as they crisscross America by virtually every mode of transportation possible: commercial jet and biplane, passenger train and cargo train, three stolen cars and a borrowed station wagon, even a brief swim through rapid waters. So here come two words for you: shut the fuck up.”
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