i miss the way 80s movies feel. not glossy or sharp, a little fuzzy, a tiny bit dirty, thrumming, pulsing. there's something oddly sexless and sterile about a lot of our recent blockbusters. actors don't have wonky teeth, dust on their faces, sweat on their brows. they don't pant after running. they don't look exhausted or hungry: they quip after throwing themselves into danger.

i think that the charm of midnight run is that it's not really an action movie populated by action stars so much as the travelogue of just some guys. they're of average intelligence, not particularly skilled, constantly making mistakes. they bicker and smoke on buses (rude!) one of them happens to be a bounty hunter and…

What's cool about Midnight Run is it's one of the best buddy cop movies to not have one of the leads play an actual cop at the time. Robert De Niro is the ex-cop turned bounty hunter hired by Joey Pants to find mob accountant / bail jumper Charles Grodin. Not only is the mob chasing De Niro and Grodin, but the FBI is paying close attention too. Throw in another reckless renegade bounty hunter out to steal De Niro's bounty, and you know you're in for a wild ride. 

Midnight Run works because of the natural chemistry between De Niro and Grodin. De Niro is the Raging Bull, but Grodin steals the show. He's neurotic and quirky. Every word…

87/100

Arguably the most inspired comic pairing of all time, and Brest deserves enormous credit for insisting on Grodin even at the cost of scuttling his initial studio deal. (I might eventually devote a Scenic Routes column to the Duke's impersonation of Mosely at the bar, a scene in which every laugh is inspired solely by Grodin's delivery and timing—not a single line is even remotely funny on paper.) At the same time, though, the film works so well in large part because De Niro, still a decade or so away from the laziness that now mostly defines him, takes his role utterly seriously. One need only look at We're No Angels, made the following year, to see how broad…