‘Midnight Run’ is a terrific road movie built around one of cinema’s great mismatched pairings. Robert De Niro, playing a gruff, rule-bending bounty hunter, is teamed with Charles Grodin’s endlessly talkative, sardonic mob accountant – a completely unexpected foil. What should be a routine job, escorting a witness from New York to Los Angeles, turns into a chaotic cross-country odyssey.

In that sense, the film echoes ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, released just a year earlier. We’re taken through a patchwork of American landscapes – cities, the Midwest, back roads – travelling by train, bus, truck, and on foot, all while the FBI, rival bounty hunters, and the mob close in. It becomes a lively tour of American life, filtered through clashing personalities.

This was also one of the first chances audiences had to see De Niro lean into comedy after a long run of intense dramatic roles. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, films like ‘Twins’ and ‘Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot’ were proving that actors known for darkness could also be funny – but ‘Midnight Run’ stands apart because it has real soul.

Grodin’s character is no saint – he lies easily and knows how to manipulate a situation – yet we sense he has a conscience. He’s stolen from the mob not out of greed, but principle. De Niro’s bounty hunter, meanwhile, starts off just doing a job for money, dreaming vaguely of a quieter life. He doesn’t like his captive, and he doesn’t care about him – at least not at first.

As the journey unravels, something unexpected happens: a genuine bond forms. One of the film’s most touching scenes comes when they detour to De Niro’s ex-wife’s house, allowing him to see his daughter for the first time in nine years. It’s tender, unapologetically sentimental, and beautifully earned.

This is a film almost entirely about two men, with very few female characters, yet it feels rich and emotionally complete. The men discover they’ve both been wronged by the same mob boss, played by Dennis Farina, and slowly they come to trust each other more than the army of duplicitous criminals and officials chasing them.

There’s plenty of action, including a memorable helicopter crash, but the real pleasure lies in the banter and the humanity. The emotional collisions matter more than the vehicular ones. De Niro’s blue-collar pragmatism contrasts with Grodin’s white-collar cleverness, yet both recognise that survival depends on cooperation.

What’s especially moving is De Niro’s quiet act of kindness near the end. Even knowing that Grodin’s character would be killed if sent to prison, he finds a way to protect him – a gesture that becomes his own form of redemption.

‘Midnight Run’ may look like a straightforward action comedy, but it turns out to be something much warmer: a road movie with real heart, built on trust, unlikely friendship, and the small moral choices that define who we are.