Three TV-movie sequels starting in 1994 with Christopher McDonald as Jack Walsh; the FBI backing Jack's plan to take down Serrano even though he impersonated Mosley for a week; Marvin consistently getting ahead of the westbound pair and remembering Jack's Amex card; how anyone reached each other by phone; the Duke never using his money belt; Jack refusing a bribe while impersonating a federal officer and stealing Marvin's car
Beyond the eight knockouts already covered, the first nit is that three sequels exist: TV movies starting in 1994 with Christopher McDonald (also transcribed 'McDonnell') as Jack Walsh, called Another Midnight Run, Midnight Run Around and Midnight Run for Your Life; they are dismissed as something to pretend never happened, and the split-second Blockbuster-era thrill of spotting a Midnight Run sequel before realizing it was the Christopher McDonald one is recalled, with a nod to a Grantland Blockbuster piece.
The biggest nit is the ending: Jack, out of time after losing the Duke, is with Mosley of the FBI, whom he has impersonated for a week, a felony on top of everything else on the trip; on the plane he proposes handing Serrano the discs to nail him on racketeering charges, and the FBI agent played by Yafet Kodo (as transcribed) throws the full force of the federal government behind a bounty hunter's plan; the clip of the arrest is played, and it is called the flaw of the movie.
It is hard to believe someone with Marvin's mental acuity, after all that head trauma, keeps getting ahead of the Duke and Walsh heading west: from Pittsburgh he finds their exact train and car and catches up repeatedly, and he remembers Jack's Amex number to cancel it; more broadly, Eddie reaches Dorfler by phone in his hotel room and Tony Darvo can be reached through a matchbook, raising how anyone got in touch in 1988; the four concussions are joked about again.
Borderline nits from the ending: the Duke carries a money belt of about 500 grand yet never tries to use it, though he did offer Jack double what Eddie was paying at the start, and Jack refuses bribes while impersonating a federal officer, stealing Marvin's car and caving his head in four times; the Duke could at least have palmed a hundred and claimed to find it on the street, since he was hungry enough for chorizo and eggs.
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.
