It sort of boggles the mind considering all the scummy characters he's played that here he plays the underdog hero. It was a nice switch; seemed to loosen him up and made him more human and likeable. Then after this it was Goodfellas and the standard glowering thug De Niro role.
shareI think you could see how much De Niro enjoyed playing Jack Walsh. Sort of shuffling of the chains of the heavy roles like Jake LaMotta or Travis Bickle
shareIt was good to see De Niro try his hand at comedy. But I think he needs a stooge to make it work because I don't think he can carry a comedy on his own.
So "Midnight Run" probably wouldn't have been quite so hilarious had it not been for the wonderful dead-pan humour of Grodin, and to a lesser extent Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton and Joe Pantoliano.
By playing off those guys you could see De Niro was really having a lot of fun with his role and the film itself. It was a joy to watch in fact.
“When is old news gonna be old news?”
― Arnold Vinick
He's played the likeable underdog in other films. The Deer Hunter, A Bronx Tale, Sleepers, Mad Dog and Glory, just to name a few off the type of my head.
shareThe Deer Hunter just mostly a silent brooder, same for Bronx Tale, Sleepers a priest, Mad Dog a featureless nerd. Here he had heroism AND personality.
shareDeNiro is great in any movie he does.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.
It's my all-time favorite De Niro performance. I think his character a poignant, loveable, anti-hero whose vulnerability De Niro exposes at the perfect pace and beautifully from behind a wall of self-defensive pain.
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