Midnight Run (1988) on Netflix
Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter, has to bring accountant Jonathan Mardukas back to Los Angeles from New York City. The FBI wants Mardukas as a witness. The mob wants him too.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Walsh left the Chicago police force after a criminal he was investigating framed him, and he now works as a bounty hunter in Los Angeles. His employer, bail bondsman Eddie Moscone, needs accountant Jonathan Mardukas back in Los Angeles within five days: Mardukas is wanted for embezzling $15 million from mob boss Jimmy Serrano and giving it away, and for skipping the $450,000 bond Moscone posted for him. The FBI also wants Mardukas to testify against Serrano, and Serrano's men offer Walsh a million dollars to hand him over instead. Walsh finds Mardukas in New York City, but Mardukas fakes a panic attack aboard the plane, forcing them off it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Midnight Run (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wanting to try something different after The Untouchables, De Niro decided on comedy and pursued the lead role in Penny Marshall's film Big; Marshall was interested, but the studio was not, so the role went to Tom Hanks. Martin Brest, who had directed Beverly Hills Cop, had developed a script with George Gallo.
- Paramount wanted a big star opposite De Niro and suggested the Mardukas character be changed to a woman, with Cher in the hope that she would provide some "sexual overtones". When that was rejected, the studio proposed Robin Williams, who was eager and offered to audition, and Bruce Willis was also mentioned.
- Grodin had permanent scars from the handcuffs he wore for most of the film. As Walsh uncuffs Mardukas on the train, Mardukas says, "Thanks, 'cause they're starting to cut into my wrists".
- The scene in which Mardukas falls off a cliff was shot on location in the Salt River Canyon in the White Mountains of Arizona, but the conclusion of the scene, in the river rapids, was shot in New Zealand because the water was "too cold in Arizona".
- Screenwriter George Gallo based the relationship between Walsh and Mardukas on his own parents: "My father was very emotional whereas my mother was far more calculating. She would let him talk and lead him down alleys and then strike like a cat."
