Midnight Run (HD-DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: B-
Though it
came out back in 1988 and was not a blockbuster, Martin Brest’s Midnight Run was a moderate hit, is a
film people still talk about and has a following. Some of it is the chemistry between Robert De
Niro as a bounty hunter going after criminal Charles Grodin who is already
running from the organized gangsters he stole $15 Million from. He knows so much that the FBI wants him in court,
but Jack Walsh (De Niro) wants his finder’s fee first.
Many have
sited the film as “realistic” and that George Gallo’s screenplay had
exceptional dialogue showing how people really talked in a way that now reminds
this critic of how Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue gets praised. However, Gallo wrote a kind of upscale
no-B.S. talk (with ironic humor) that was refreshing at the time after years of
1980s mall movies with phony chatter and no point. It meshes well with the action, tight editing
and solid pace, but it is still not heavily urban and has a polish that is more
obvious now than it might have been then.
I am not
the biggest fan of this film, but I still appreciate what Brest and company
pulled off here. This is a smart,
simple, ambitious, to-the-point film like we rarely see anymore, but the kind
we used to see all the time before the studios got bogged down by mostly
mindless tentpoles. Yaphet Kotto, Joe
Pantoliano and Dennis Farina also star.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is not perfect, but it is the closest to
the original 35mm release prints and still outdoes the previous standard DVD
editions. Donald Thorin, A.S.C., shot
this very well and it is a big screen film.
Unfortunately, a new print needs to be struck at a later date and the
negative checked for troubles. The
original sound on the film was Dolby’s analog theatrical A-type of sound, but
this HD-DVD offers a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix that tries to expand the sound,
but it cannot cover up the age of the recording. Danny Elfman’s score dates this a bit. The only extras are a making of piece and the
original theatrical trailer. Wonder if a
special edition is down the line?
- Nicholas Sheffo
