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The Rewatchables ·

Midnight Run

year 1988decade 80sdirector Martin Brestgenre Actiongenre Comedygenre Crime
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryan
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 23:45

The boxcar scene

Every scene is called rewatchable, so a few are thrown out: the counterfeit-twenties con in the bar (the 'litmus configuration' test), Jack visiting his daughter, the coffee-shop scene with the chorizo and the 53-cent coffee where the Duke needles Jack about Serrano, the boxcar scene, and the late chase where Jack loses the Duke, stops the car under the helicopters and says he has come too far.

The boxcar is the pick for both: it is where the two finally break down and become real friends, a cathartic release after the car chase through the desert, apparently mostly improvised, and a lived-in, funny, genuine scene between two great actors; any scene with Farina or Pantoliano is a rewind, but the boxcar is the rewatchable one.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:04:10

"Here come two words for you. Shut the fuck up"

The whole movie is quotable, but the one iconic quote is the exchange where the Duke tells Jack he is a grown man with control over his own words and gets two words back; it is hilarious and timeless and the one said most often.

The film

Midnight Run (1988)

Directed by Martin Brest · Action

126 minutes

IMDb
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Robert De Niro Jack Walsh
Robert De Niro Jack Walsh
Charles Grodin Jonathan Mardukas
Charles Grodin Jonathan Mardukas
Yaphet Kotto Alonzo Mosely
Yaphet Kotto Alonzo Mosely
John Ashton Marvin Dorfler
John Ashton Marvin Dorfler
Dennis Farina Jimmy Serrano
Dennis Farina Jimmy Serrano
Joe Pantoliano Eddie Moscone
Joe Pantoliano Eddie Moscone
Richard Foronjy Tony Darvo
Richard Foronjy Tony Darvo
Jack Kehoe Jerry Geisler
Jack Kehoe Jerry Geisler
Tracey Walter Diner counter man
Tracey Walter Diner counter man

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

23:45

Most Rewatchable Scene

The boxcar scene

The boxcar scene

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:23:45Read transcript
  • Every scene is called rewatchable, so a few are thrown out: the counterfeit-twenties con in the bar (the 'litmus configuration' test), Jack visiting his daughter, the coffee-shop scene with the chorizo and the 53-cent coffee where the Duke needles Jack about Serrano, the boxcar scene, and the late chase where Jack loses the Duke, stops the car under the helicopters and says he has come too far.
  • The boxcar is the pick for both: it is where the two finally break down and become real friends, a cathartic release after the car chase through the desert, apparently mostly improvised, and a lived-in, funny, genuine scene between two great actors; any scene with Farina or Pantoliano is a rewind, but the boxcar is the rewatchable one.
  • The setup as recounted: the Duke slips into a boxcar thinking he has escaped, Jack comes around the other side and, furious, announces he is not talking for the rest of the trip; the director then told Grodin to loosen De Niro up, De Niro was too wound up to crack, and Grodin finally landed it with a crude teasing question about the farm animals on the reservation, which leads to the exchange about the watch; the clip is played and it is called the best scene in the movie.
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27:27

What’s Aged the Best?

The unexpectedly poignant moments and Danny Elfman's score

The unexpectedly poignant moments and Danny Elfman's score

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:27Read transcript
  • The chemistry between De Niro and Grodin has aged best, even though De Niro reportedly did not like Grodin much, stayed in character through take after take, and Grodin, probably playing close to himself, kept trying to annoy him; that kind of two-guy chemistry is rarer than you would think.
  • A list of best two-guy movie chemistry: Travolta and Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction, Gibson and Danny Glover, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, Redford and Newman in The Sting and Butch, Eddie Murphy and Nolte in 48 Hours, with The Rock and Kevin Hart, Farrell and Riley in Step Brothers, Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock, and Bill Murray and Harold Ramis added; it gets rarer this century because movies are usually driven by one person.
  • There are 119 f-bombs in the movie though it feels like 280, especially in the last call to Eddie; the phone call where Farina has Moron Number One put Moron Number Two on while the other guy shadow-boxes the one on the phone is too short to be a rewatchable scene but slays.
  • McCarran Airport, the saddest place on earth when everyone is leaving Vegas, has not changed since 1988 and makes you want to shout that Serrano has the discs; Grand Central Market in downtown LA still looks much the same, though you could not take a payphone call from a restaurant there now.
  • Danny Elfman's score (transcribed once as 'Danny Offen's') is like the Bus Boys from 48 Hours doing a soundtrack, one of the best ever despite some people disliking it: it slows down and kicks back in at the right places and sounds like Steely Dan's backing band vamping before Becker and Fagan (as transcribed) walk on; anyone anti-soundtrack is called a moron.
  • 'Looks like I'm walking' is one of the better last lines of any movie covered, especially since walking out of LAX is no fun; the visit to the daughter is one of the favorite De Niro scenes: awkward, he has nothing to ask her beyond what grade she is in, she offers him money as he leaves and he cannot take it, and then he holds the door of his wife's station wagon so Grodin's coat does not get caught, every beat graded A plus.
  • The weird sentimental moments may be what has aged best, with several unexpectedly poignant beats including the ending; a tangent on the greatest De Niro scenes names the Godfather 2 killing, moments in Cape Fear, the Goodfellas slow-motion smoking shot at the bar, nearly every scene in Heat including the diner, and many in Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver, while Raging Bull is now a tough, one-and-out watch.
  • Asked at the end what was said for what aged best, the recap is the poignant moments and Danny Elfman's music; the chemistry, the last line, the unchanged settings and the profanity were raised along the way.
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34:55

What’s Aged the Worst?

The eight knockouts with no concussion awareness

The eight knockouts with no concussion awareness

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:34:55Read transcript
  • De Niro bringing a gun onto an airplane is jarring; the movie could be released now except for that, the payphones, the lack of cell phones and no internet.
  • The constant smoking: Jack smokes everywhere, Grodin gets pissy about it on the bus and you side with the smoker; Jack puts a cigarette out on the hallway carpet before picking a lock in a beaten-down downtown LA apartment building; even in the nineties you could be stuck next to a smoker on a plane, and now everyone would be vaping; chain-smoking Marlboro Reds through Brest's endless takes must have meant five packs a day, and De Niro, a method actor, was surely not smoking fakes.
  • Cable airings with bleeps have aged worst of all for one host; the movie is not meant to be watched bleeped, since the art of the f-bomb is on full display.
  • The number one pick: eight guys get knocked out with no concussion awareness and nobody ever bleeds; Marvin, the rival bounty hunter played by John Ashton, goes down four times in a 100-minute movie, the Duke twice, and Moron Number One and Two once each, often by pistol-whip or shotgun butt; a 2013 joke that the movie was directed by Roger Goodell is recalled, no alternative is offered, and Marvin is imagined in a dark room on an E60 piece with Jeremy Schaap (transcribed 'Schapp'), unable to remember his wife's name.
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46:22

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Joe Pantoliano or Dennis Farina

Joe Pantoliano or Dennis Farina

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:46:22Read transcript
  • There may never have been more candidates, with Heat the only comparison; the field is Dennis Farina as Serrano, John Ashton, Yafet Kodo (as transcribed), Joe Pantoliano and Philip Baker Hall as Farina's lawyer.
  • John Ashton, Marvin here and Rosewood's partner in Beverly Hills Cop, with Cop 2 one of the great heat checks, would win going away in any other movie; it is a mystery why he never had a bigger career or a Fox cop drama, since he could easily have been the Dennis Franz character in NYPD Blue.
  • Yafet Kodo (as transcribed), the FBI agent whose identity De Niro steals, is in maybe fifteen minutes yet hits seven threes on presence alone, and carried it over to network TV.
  • Joe Pantoliano, who has his own award on the show, was in the stretch where he stopped being that guy, after Risky Business, Running Scared and Eddie and the Cruisers, and became Joe Pantoliano here, dyed hair and all; by the strict letter of the Dion Waiters law one host gives it to Pantoliano for making the most of his opportunity.
  • The other host goes Farina, who is in about five scenes, all filmed in Vegas because he was doing Crime Story, and is completely over the top in a baggy gray-and-black sweater; they agree to disagree, and his threats about the pencil, the cream soda and burying the telephone in his lawyer Sydney's head are recited.
  • Farina's best work is argued over: his mob boss Lombard in the first Miami Vice season, which led to Crime Story and typecasting as cop or mob boss after eighteen real years as a Chicago cop; Manhunter as Will Petersen's boss (preferred over the Bronx Tale performance of the actor transcribed as 'Chaz Pimentary'); and Out of Sight as Jennifer Lopez's father.
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50:42

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Joe Pantoliano

Joe Pantoliano

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:50:42Read transcript
  • An all-time that-guy extravaganza, with some former that-guys now too well known: Moron Number One and Two, the dad from My So Called Life as an FBI agent, and Eddie Moscone's sidekick who dimes him out and keeps offering to get donuts (transcribed 'Eddie Moscon').
  • The award goes to Joey Pants because it is named after him.
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53:32

Apex Mountain

Charles Grodin; Dennis Farina; Joe Pantoliano

Charles Grodin; Dennis Farina; Joe Pantoliano

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:32Read transcript
  • Grodin is a yes from both with no debate.
  • De Niro is complicated and this is not his apex but a high step toward it; candidates for his real apex are Taxi Driver, Raging Bull coming off Godfather 2, and Goodfellas, with a Marvin's Room joke; one host personally calls Midnight Run his favorite De Niro peak but then argues Goodfellas, where the anticipation of De Niro in a Scorsese mob movie as Jimmy Conway made the credibility the hook, as the arguable apex, so the lean does not stand as a pick.
  • Dennis Farina is a yes; John Ashton is not, since Beverly Hills Cop 2, where his divorce is a running joke for Judge Reinhold, beats Midnight Run.
  • Joey Pants is a yes: he is great in Memento and The Matrix, but this is the favorite and his apex because this is where he becomes Joey Pants, running to the restaurant or reporting that Marvin has the Duke.
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55:59

Is This Movie Better With…?

Steve Buscemi

Steve Buscemi

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:59Read transcript
  • Last week listeners were asked to tweak the Danny Trejo category (transcribed 'Danny trail'), since it had already been decided Trejo should be in every movie; a couple of people suggested variations of the adopted idea, so no one person gets credit: three actors, taken from a time machine in their primes, and the hosts decide which fits best.
  • Buscemi is the obvious pick for both: he could have played seven parts, Moron Number One or Two, the donuts guy, Joey Pants, an FBI agent, even the Duke on a budget; the game is called fun and the suggestions are thanked.
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57:00

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

No clear overactor; Joe Pantoliano as the nearest candidate

No clear overactor; Joe Pantoliano as the nearest candidate

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:00Read transcript
  • The award is now also named for Robert Shaw's Quint in Jaws, with a Quint impression; nobody really overacts in this movie, though Pantoliano never modulates his performance and dials it up in a good way, as in his line about everybody telling him to go fuck himself.
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1:02:49

Who Won the Movie?

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:49Read transcript
  • De Niro is the pick, as a favorite De Niro performance ever; his performances are ranked with Midnight Run as 1A and Jimmy Conway 1B, Godfather 2 third for building a character on what young Brando's interpretation would have been, Heat fourth and Raging Bull fifth; a recent Deer Hunter rewatch is called a tough hang but incredible, and John Kazal (as transcribed) only made the four best movies of all time.
  • De Niro wins, with honorable mention for Grodin (transcribed 'Gerdin'), all the that-guy performers, a case for Danny Elfman, and Martin Brest; the result is affirmed twice.
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Robert De Niro
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