Midnight Run

Midnight Run Movie Poster

"Charles Grodin embezzled 15 million dollars.  The mob wants him dead.  The FBI wants him alive.  Robert De Niro just wants him to shut up.  This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Midnight Run, released in 1988, is an action-comedy starring Robert DeNiro as Jack Walsh and Charles Grodin as Jonahtan "The Duke" Mardukas.  For the most part, the movie received positive reviews, and it was a hit at the box office.  In fact, it was successful enough to warrant three TV sequels released in 1994.

In the original movie, Jack Walsh, and ex-cop turned bounty hunter, is hired to bring white-collar criminal Charles Madukas back to Los Angeles.  Not only is the mob after Madukas for stealing their money, but the FBI wants him too in order to testify against the mob.  The FBI warns Walsh to stay out of it, but instead Walsh steals an FBI badge, passing himself off as an FBI agent, and continues with the "Midnight Job" in order to earn his $100k fee for catching Madukas.

When the bail bondsman thinks that Walsh plans on selling out to the FBI or the mob, he sends out a rival bounty hunter and cuts off Walsh's credit cards.  Walsh, who has every intention of returning Madukas to the bounty hunter, has to resort to unconventional means to get back to Los Angeles, such as stealing cars and hitchhiking.  During the trip, Madukas learns that Walsh was once an honest cop who was framed and whose life was ruined by the same mob that Madukas stole money from.

In the end, the FBI gets the upper hand on the mob, the other crooked bounty hunter's efforts are thwarted, and Walsh decides not to return Madukas to the bail bondsman after all.  Instead, after becoming friends, Madukas gives Walsh $300k in cash and the two walk away.