Buttons, Switches & Consoles Vol 4 - Midnight Run (1988)

Thanks for watching! Welcome back to Button Switches and Consoles. I'm your co-host, Father Malone. With me, as always, is Laura Grillo. Hi, Father Malone.

This is the first deviation we've made in our programming. Oh, no, I think the viewers, I think the listeners are going to think so. No, I feel like we can talk about that right off the bat as to why they're wrong. Some people might think it's a reach, but it's not. There's a lot of old tech in me.

The movie we're talking about, written by George Gallo, directed by Martin Brest, starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yafit Kodo, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Panigliano. From 1987, here's the trailer for Midnight Run. Robert De Niro is a bounty hunter. Did your mother ever teach you how to talk nice to people and not shoot at them? Charles Brodin is an accountant who embezzled $ 15 million from the mob.

It is truly in your best interest to just relax. I'm totally relaxed. I want this guy taken off. I want him taken off fast. The mob wants him dead.

The FBI want him alive. I'm going to bring him into federal court. Do I make myself understood? These sunglasses, they're really nice. Are they government issues or do all you guys go like to the.

Same store to get them? And his bail bondsman wants him in L.A. in 72 hours. They can't fly. They also suffer from macrophobia and claustrophobia. I'll tell you what, if you don't cooperate, you're going to suffer from fistophobia.

Travel has a funny way of bringing people together. Are you going to outrace the police car? Are you going to outrace the police car? Jack, where are you? I'm in Boise, Idaho.

Wait a minute. I'm in Anchorage, Alaska. Why would you do that? Oh, you enjoy yourself. This is my room and that's your room.

Good night. I was somewhere between Toledo and Cleveland. Oh, no, no. Come on. Come on.

Cigarettes are killers. Who the hell were those guys? Those are hired killers back there. I can't take this. Hired to kill who?

Hired to kill this guy. You had this guy, what, four days? Four days. Look, you've got five hours left. What are you doing?

You promise you'll let me go this time? Open that door here next time. Remember me? Agent Foster Grant. You're all right, Jack.

Ah! Yeah, well, you're all right, too. Give us a kiss. From the director of Beverly Hills Cop. What is your plan?

You guys look like you do a lot of traveling. Yeah. Midnight Run. Laura, when did you first see Midnight Run? Gosh, in 1987.

In the theater? Yeah, I did. It was great. I agree. I think this is a perfect fucking movie.

It is one of, it's, yeah, it's pretty great. And it's super analog, so there's tons of old things in it. Old tech in it. Yes. The plot does center around a group of computer disks.

My God, what are those? But there's more than that. There's payphones, there's landlines, there's wire transfers, there's wires and surveillance stuff. There's forging of documents while children watch. There's the litmus configuration.

You're right. This is just filled with old tech. Man, I remember doing the litmus configure arrangement. This was released on July the 20th, 1988. And I was working at a movie theater.

It was my first job as a young person. So I was 15 years old when this came out. And I watched it every day and every opportunity I could. I have seen this movie countless times. I said it was a perfect movie.

I still think it's a perfect movie. Starting with one of the most uncharacteristic scores of Danny Elfman's entire career, which I understand when you boil it down is just basic bar band bullshit. but it is the most joyous of basic bar band bullshit I've ever heard. When the main theme for this kicks in, I get really happy. In fact, when the Universal logo starts up at the beginning, and it's the sort of lone guitar sound, that alone makes me very, very happy. I'm not one for nostalgia, and listeners to Midnight Dreaming in general know I kind of fucking hate it, but this movie made me nostalgic.

Just those moments. Well, to me, it was just... imitating 48 Hours soundtrack. Do you think so? I mean... Yeah, I said it.

It's a little more lively than the 48 Hours soundtrack, which was all saxophone. That was all David Sanborn. Yeah, but this was more trumpets. There weren't many saxes. Okay.

Trumpets beat saxes any day of the week. Everybody knows that. You don't bring a saxophone to battle. Okay, they don't bring a saxophone to a gunfight. Or no, a knife fight.

I don't know. Any fight at all. Just leave the sax out of it. Unless you're bringing the sax man. The sexy sax man.

Remember that guy? From Lost Boys? No, the sexy sax man from Video Fame who would come in and play Careless Whisper in college campuses while everyone was trying to study. This is a video from like 15 years ago. Look it up.

I'll wait. No. I don't want to right now. Let's talk. Yeah.

Grodin. God, he's the best. Fucking best. The living embodiment of sarcasm, Charles Grodin. You know, that's funny because he kept accusing Robert De Niro's character of being sarcastic.

Well, he's right. He's just so smart. But the Grodin character is aware of his sarcasm, whereas I don't think Jack really is at all. No, it's true. And You know, they took a road trip together before they shot this film so they could like...

Vibe. Vibe. And I also heard that De Niro was fighting for Grodin to do this part because the studio didn't want to give it to him. God bless Robert De Niro. I know.

Because what a perfect pairing. Exactly. Grodin is so good in this that I kept thinking he had to have come up with every line of dialogue because it's all very Charles Grodin. There's a few things that he did come up with. on set improvisation that they left in the movie, like the litmus configuration. Right.

So I went and read George Gallo's, the shooting draft of the screenplay. And I've got to say the actors adhered so closely to that script that it's startling how much Charles Grodin gave his own lines. All of his lines are basically there, but he's spun them out. So they're actually really funny. He's incredible in this movie.

So good. Love him. I also heard that he wore actual handcuffs throughout the making of the film so that it would be more realistic, but it left permanent scars. Oof. I guess if you're going to get any scarring for a movie, it might as well be this one.

Yeah, this one deserves some permanent scar. Is this moron number one? Put moron number two on the phone. Yeah, that Dennis Farina, who was an actual cop in Chicago before he started acting. made this movie you know and both De Niro and John Ashton who I love hung out with bounty hunters before they started making the film so they could understand what they were doing. And it all works like everything everybody did was I guess perfect because what a fucking concoction we.

Ended up with it was this is this movie is a perfect movie he's great in it my favorite part was when he was like Colin Martin and he's like Martin Dorfler and he's like yeah Look under the Rolodex. D for jerk. He was great. Eddie Moscone. Originally Eddie Nardone in the screenplay.

Oh, wow. Not that different. I wonder why they changed it. They must know someone. They probably, the legal found a bail bondsman named Eddie Nardone.

That's exactly what happened. And did you notice that the stewardess, did she look familiar to you? No. She was also in Cherry 2000. Which we just talked about.

Was she in the Glue Glue Club? No, she became the bad guy. Oh, at the Leisure Club with Tim Thomerson. Yes, yes. Tim Thomerson, who marks all of our.

Pictures in some way. I can't remember what her name was in the movie. Vera, let's say. It was something, and then she wanted to go buy something. Yafit Koto.

Let's talk about Yafit Koto for a second here. I heard that he wanted to be in character the whole time on the film and he made people call him Agent Mosley. I love that. I love that in this case. You know why?

Have you ever heard of somebody in doing the method and being a nice guy? character? It's always when they're like the worst fucking despicable human beings on earth and they can just go, well, I guess I'm going to be despicable for the next six months. It's never like Tom Hanks really became Mr. Roger. Well, Anna Taylor Joy had a quote about that recently in an interview saying that Women don't go method because they have shit to do.

And I think that's fucking true. That was a good quote. That's hilarious. Did you see that Jim Carrey documentary, Andy and Me? No.

Tell me about it. It is a document of the filming of the Andy Warhol, the Andy Kaufman film. Yeah, Man on the Moon. where Jim Carrey stayed in character as Andy Kaufman for the length of filming. It is the most self-indulgent shit you will ever see in your life. Yeah, no, I missed that one.

Check it out. I think it's on HBO. I'll put a link in the show notes. Okay. I liked Mrs.

Couple People. Even the smaller characters, like Jack Kehoe, who played Jerry, who's like, let me go get some donuts. I love Jack Kehoe. He was incredible. Or the Pesci, I think it's Frank Pesci.

He's like, name's Carmine, fucko. To me, that was some of the funniest lines. In the movie. There is no wasted character in the film. No.

Yeah, you're right. Even that character, he's in it for one scene and makes his mark. Yes, he does. He's great. I loved it.

And I also love that Jack didn't take money from the kid. Yeah. I was like, there's no way I could be okay with that. And Robert De Niro wouldn't be okay with that either. No.

The love is too clear. Yeah. But yeah, I like how they go all across the country to all these places like Amarillo, Texas. It's just, it's a beautiful road movie. It is.

Yeah, it's every... Every location they go to feels real, lived in, like they're out there doing it. Nothing feels false at all. All the emotions feel real throughout the entire movie. These are really well-defined characters in what is a genre of usually cardboard cutout stereotypes, just bantering with one another.

You know that they went to a lot of places and didn't tell people anything. that they were making a movie, so there was a lot of unwitting, they didn't know they were being extras in a movie. Oh, that's fantastic. So that happened a lot. How did they, getting away with this, Martin Brest, Mr. Beverly Hills Cop, who walked away from War Games.

Yes. Over on Airlocks. Was he walk away or was he asked to walk away? Yeah, you're right. I think they thought he was going way too dark for War Games, which is funny because this is the lightest film with the most serious tone ever.

Yeah, and I mean, there's not much to it. It's a lot of grays and beiges and concrete colors, and it's just no bells and whistles here. It's just the movie. Yeah, with a labyrinthine plot where everything sort of snaps together. That's the thing is, anything that is actually really complicated, if it's done well, just seems like the most simple thing ever, like a magic trick, like anyone could do it.

I think people saw this movie and went, yeah, we can keep making buddy kind of cop movies no you can't they kind of did it here. Do you think this is the reason why. I can only imagine what's coming. Like we got Turner and. Hooch no no I don't think this is a direct direct result of that I think I think yeah I think there's always a canine no not that one either with Jim Belushi I.

Think there's always a dog movie in production somewhere. That's fair. I mean, I'd like to think that there were a slew of buddy cop dog movies inspired by Midnight Run, but I don't think any of their scripts came up to this one's level. No, they made a couple of made-for-TV movie sequels, I guess, but nobody wanted to watch them. Trying to jumpstart a series.

And then 10 years ago, they were going to do a sort of, not remake, maybe, I don't know. And Charles Grodin was supposed to do a cameo before he got sick and passed. Oh, I would not like to watch Further Adventures of Jack without Jonathan Mardukas. Yeah, but it wouldn't have been Robert De Niro. It would have been a whole different cast.

Oh, well, forget it. Yeah. I guess if you wanted to maybe do a shot-for-shot remake like Psycho, you could try something here. Oh, please don't do that. That was such a bad idea.

I don't think touching this movie at all is a good idea. No, yeah. And it wasn't made, so we're okay. Okay. Yeah, but no, we're never okay because the IP is still out there.

We're hyping it up right now. We might be putting it on the radar. Shut this episode down. People should watch this movie if they haven't seen this movie. It's so smart, so funny.

A perfect piece of cinema. Yeah. Where all the action works, all the comedy works, all the pathos works. My God, this movie rips your heart out in places. It does.

I did cry. And it is extremely funny. Just the banter between the two of them. There are so many fucking lines from this movie that just live in my head. The sit down, eat a sandwich, do some fucking thing.

I say that more. Than I should. Have some milk. Dennis Farina. Yeah, he was great.

He was great. He was great. I will put a bullet into him and then dump his body in a swamp. And then he shakes his head no to Charles Grodin. That moment.

Oh my God. I laughed every time I saw it when I was in the theater. My favorites were like when he was like, say hello. And he was like, hello. The way he, Charles Grodin did that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or the part on the train where he was like playing him and As if Robert De Niro was yelling at him, like, hey, what do you mean? Oh, shut the fuck up. Because other than that, he didn't actually swear in the movie, really. So that was funny.

That's true. Because he's the Duke. Which is how his character Slug is in the screenplay. The Duke. The Duke.

Over and over again. Well, it fits. It does. And this has a helicopter crash, and that doesn't feel out of place. It's got small human drama.

You didn't like the helicopter? I love that a helicopter exploding. Kill those mafia guys, says I. I don't know if they were mafia guys or random mafia guys. What's the difference to our heroes?

Okay. Okay. I don't know. Guns is guns. I guess it wasn't like fast and furious CGI killing hundreds of thousands of people as the day goes.

So it's cool. We're good. We're good. All right. But so the most, the weirdest scene, which I found out, I actually had to look this up.

When you start saying, have you ever had sex with an animal, Jack? Yeah. That was completely Grodin improvising because he was trying to break Robert De Niro out of what he was doing. And I guess it succeeded. But I was like, what screenwriter came up with this?

Nope. But it wasn't his fault. Just Grodin. Yeah, it was just Grodin. He can do no wrong.

The only true foil for Miss Piggy, Charles Grodin. Ooh. They had serious chemistry, and I will... Oh, my God. That was love.

Or whatever it was. What was it? Mutual attraction. Yeah. That's all it was.

It was just lust. And diamonds. That movie doesn't get enough respect. Best one. Muppets take Manhattan.

How dare you. What else? Tell me more about this movie. What else do you love about the film? There's so much good about it.

Heckle and Jekyll, the two... Hop along, kiss at each. All of that. Oh, that's another line I say to people if they're staring at me for too long. Are you going to propose?

I will say that to people. I love how that guy was so obsessed with different people, their outfits, their jacket or the hat. And he was so dedicated. He did not break. He was like the annoying character.

Yeah, like he's on the phone and he's punching him, you know, playfully. He's like, what is wrong with you? He's good. He hangs up and he's like, he's not mad at me, is he? I know.

Incredible. Incredible. Oh, I think we're just reciting favorite lines now. I know we are. And John Ashton, he was so unlikable and so good at it.

And I love him. One pet peeve. Okay, go for it. But this is a pet peeve across all movies. Knocking somebody out as a screenwriting technique.

There was a lot of that. You get the character inert. Okay, we take them out of the scenario. Got it. But now they have brain damage.

Every time someone is unconscious, there's some scarring going on on their brain. Yeah, but no bruises, nothing. No. That was annoying. Yeah.

Maybe they shouldn't have just kept fucking pummeling poor Jack, even though it is funny. That he keeps falling for it, I mean. Who? John Ashton's character? Yes.

It does pay off, because at the end, they really are behind him. What do you think of the watch as symbolism for the film? I think when I was 15, I thought it was ingenious, and now I think it's just a little clumsy. Okay. It gets you there.

Yeah, it does, but you know, here's what, I don't think the idea of the watch itself is the problem. I think it's having him doing this a lot, because he wouldn't be doing that a lot. What do you mean? Like tapping it. To check the time?

No, he kept rattling it by his ear, like as if to hear if the clockwork was still working inside there. And the clockwork would have stopped long, long ago. And that character, who doesn't really like interacting with many people... would know that this is a tracking question. Okay. By the way, you can't see me doing it because this is a radio show.

But I'm shaking my fist by my ear as if to hear if the watch is broken. Radio drama, everybody. Yeah, I mean. But I like the idea of him holding on to that. I know that I do things like that myself, so.

But I just don't wave it so people go, hey, what is that thing? Because it's none of their business. How do you think, in the end, how it winded up with all that, the discs and everything, back to our button switches and consoles, why this movie is on here? I particularly like it because it's a rude, where they have nothing. They don't, yeah.

But the intent behind coming to take those discs, whether they're real or not, is the crime, and then they can build the case on that. I think it's one of the most satisfying endings of any film ever, given who we know of Jack and his relationship with this guy, particularly the conversation we get to have between him and Serrano, where you can see De Niro's mind exploding with rage as he remains calm. Needling him, needling him. Oof. Saying awful, awful things.

Nobody, by the way, can just hold a cigarette by their mouth only the way Robert De Niro can in this movie. It's really a work of art. Oh, he's, yeah. I guess he's good, yeah? That De Niro?

Yeah, I think he's got a future, yeah. I'd like to see more of him. But that, yeah, that climax in the airport, I think it's always tension-filled. This movie is edited superbly. It is, it is, yeah.

And then when he gets arrested and De Niro gets to come up and say, here's something I've always wanted to say to you, you're under arrest. Oh! And he said it so subtly. And so, like, you're under. Yeah, it was beautiful.

Beautiful. Beautiful. And then he gets a fucking diner and Charles Grodin gets away. How is this not the best movie of all time? I know.

I just worry about the wife. That was a loose end. The mafia might still be gunning for her. Yeah, she should not be there. No.

That's the sequel that they should have made. It was just that, you know, he thought of everything except. How to protect her. Yeah. As usual...

Wipes the afterthought. Let's go have fun on the road. Yada hey, everyone. Yada hey. I think that's going to do it.

I think so. Oh, my goodness. What are we going to be doing next here on switches and buttons and consoles? What are we going to do next? None of your business.

It's top secret. Hey, sit down. Relax. Have a sandwich. Yeah, do something.

Do some fucking thing. Do some fucking thing. Until next time, for Laura, I'm Father Malone. Try to enjoy the daylight. Thank you.