Midnight Run (Review)

I like to consider myself somewhat of a cinephile, however there are a few classics, I'm ashamed to admit, I've never had the pleasure of viewing, for one reason or another. So it was that, last night while waiting in line for a 12-inch tuna sub at Subway, I mentioned to the diminutive old woman behind me that I had yet to see Midnight Run. The look on her face said it all, and I knew, to avoid further social alienation, I must viddy the film ASAP. Because I'm a motherfucking conformist like that.

But here's the problem: video stores in Korea are slowly going the way of the dinosaur (which is to say that they are dying and being buried deep underground to become fossil fuel which will one day power our flying cars. So it appears Nostradamus was right.), and I had no way of locating this modern classic.

Enter the Internet. Did you know that, with a little ingenuity and elbow grease, Hollywood feature films are readily available for download, for free? I know, I was as shocked as you no doubt are now.

Anyway, onto the review proper. Midnight Run stars Robert DeNiro as Joe Buck, a naive country bumpkin determined to make his way in a metropolis of opportunity, New York City. There's a reason for Buck's exodus, however director Ron Howard never fully explores it, only giving us hints. Perhaps reading the original novel -- a collaboration between the late Robert Ludlum and the later Phillip K. Dick -- would shed some light, but, to quote Renton in The Transporter, why would I want to do that?

Much like Isiah Thomas and Randy Johnson, Buck has a hard time getting adjusted to success in The Big Apple; that is, until he meets Billy "Ratso" Hayes, played here magnificently by Charles Grodin. The two quickly form a bond, and Ratso, also down on his luck and looking to turn things around, suggests that they try smuggling drugs out of Turkey. Ratso, it is revealed, owes a Las Vegas mobster 15 million dollars, his drug smuggling scheme a last resort, and one which makes perfect sense to the corn-fed Joe Buck.

(DeNiro's "I only get airsick on boats" line during the duo's flight to Turkey ranks among cinema's biggest laugh-out-loud moments, by the way.)

But the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, and soon Buck and Ratso find themselves arrested and sentenced to serve 4 years in a Turkish prison. The pair try to make lemonade of lemons by soliciting sex from their fellow cell mates (Buck as the gigalo, Ratso his pimp), but when Buck discovers Ratso has been selling secrets to prison officials in exchange for Gummi Bears, Buck bites off his tongue and is subsequently sent to the prison's insane asylum (look closely for Danny DeVito, in his first film role, as one of the asylum's patients).

Buck then lays out plans to excape the prison's hellish torture -- the ward's head nurse refuses to allow the 1988 World Series to be watched by the inmates -- and after taking six correctional officers hostage manages to flee to the prison wall, where he is airlifted to safety by Flava Flav and the S1Ws. His conscience, however, forces him to command pilot James Bomb (played to perfection by James Earl Jones) to turn back and rescue Ratso.

By this time tears were streaming down my cheeks, I'm not ashamed to admit. Buck's reunion with Ratso is singlehandedly the most touching moment I've ever witnessed on-screen, and I've seen Maxwell Caulfield in The Boys Next Door hit an old woman in the head with a carelessly thrown beer bottle, so that's saying something.

Ratso, suffering from tetanus but afraid to admit the fact, wets himself during the flight, and Buck forces the chopper to land on the roof of a McDonald's so that Ratso might clean himself up and Buck can get a Filet-O-Fish with hummus. Shortly after their departure, Buck discovers that Ratso, whom he had believed to be asleep, has in fact passed away. The film ends with a shot of DeNiro forlornly holding the dead Charles Grodin in his arms as the helicopter crosses the border from Turkey to Canada. Fade to black.

I'm at a loss for words. Really, what can one say about such a beautiful portrayal of love, loyalty, and sacrfice? Nothing, that's what. To say more would demean, nay, soil, the profound exquisitness of Ritchie Cunningham's sublime prose poem of a film.

But I would remiss if I didn't mention that the basketball -- and schadenfreude -- gods have looked down kindly upon my youthful visage. Having last year's two Finals teams knocked out in the first round is poetic in a Tupac/Biggie sort of way. Let Chaos -- and Baron Davis's bee-beard -- reign supreme! Because when life hands you lemons, make fun of Mark Cuban and Dirk Nowitzki.