Midnight Run 1988 * * 1/2 Stars

AFTER MIDNIGHT

"It is truly in your best interest to just relax". So quips Robert De Niro's Jack Walsh in 1988's Midnight Run, a rather overrated piece of action-thronged swipe. Yeah 95% on Rotten doesn't lie but it would be in my best interest as a critic to not lie to myself. 

So yeah, Midnight Run was directed by then box office champ Martin Brest, coming off the huge success of one Beverly Hills Cop. With "Run", Brest gives the film a dangerous vitality and a frantic pace, a little too frantic for him to handle considering that his work usually moves at a snail's lick. I mean with Martin it's all about the cinematic journey, the means to a long end. That's why Midnight Run has tons of locales (including a Niles, MI train station located 20 miles from where I grew up) and milieus, a sort of crisscross-whiffed Americana. "What do think this is a class trip?" You said it Bob not me. 

A Mexican standoff here, a helicopter/car chase there, crime boss high noon-s everywhere, Midnight Run is like 1987's Planes, Trains and Automobiles for bounty hunters. The only problem is that the flick doesn't have much heart, or characters you get to really know, or an actual, composite story. It's basically a well-acted pic with De Niro's Walsh pursuing a mob accountant (Jonathan Mardukas played by Charles Grodin) in hopes of getting him back to LA to collect $100,000 from a bail bondsman.  

Clocking in at just over two hours, Midnight Run provides plenty of gun-drawing battles, fade in, fade out personas, and jocular payoffs only to evaporate right after the closing credits come up. I mean all the witty banter between De Niro/Grodin and humor me scenes of public place, 80s chain smoking aren't gonna get me closer to recommending it. Tip and "run". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare 2023 * * * 1/2 Stars

TRIAL BY ORDEAL

"There was a deep concern that the youth of America was taking a wrong turn." According to 2023's Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, that refers to the 1980s and all its big mane glory. That's funny. I always thought it was the 70s in which kids were at their most ungovernable. Netflix, it seems you've stumped me again.

With interviews that feel earned from people who were there (angry minors, law enforcement, attorneys) and grainy archives that give off the whiff of creeped out remembrance, "Hell Camp" is a documentary that never hits a false note, and that's despite its need to push the bourn of bad taste. I mean young-un-s forced to hike in 100-degree, Utah heat without the use of toilet paper and/or access to water is pretty bad. "You know, what do you do?" That's a good question. I mean what do you do.

Unbearable hotness and historical contexts begot, Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare is a haunting vehicle about a haunting guy (the late Steve Cartisano), whose stock footage probing lingers long after the closing credits come up. So yeah, Steve made a ton of moolah running a therapy wilderness camp, where troubled teens were kidnapped, taken to a faraway place, and made to do manual labor (amongst other things that were indecorous). 

TV director Liza Williams, well she looks like a seasoned pro in regards to "Hell Camp", interspersing late, "decade of decadence" clips with present day accounts, all the while pandering to the rhythms of Tom Ryan's heady musical score. Watching Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, you realize that Williams is trying like all hell to achieve an end (pun intended). I mean this is a true story that needed to be told and you painfully wonder why it took 30 darn years to tell it. Atheists "nightmare". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Reagan 2024 * * * Stars

HONEY, I FORGOT TO DUCK

Somewhere between Oliver Stone's W. and Adam McKay's 2018 vehicle Vice, lies Reagan, a biopic that's not as dialogue-driven as the former and less spoof-like than the latter. Reagan, well it's about Ronald Reagan (duh), the 40th prez of the United States and a former actor to boot. Told in one 135-minute flashback sequence through the eyes and ears of fictional KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (played by Jon Voight, acting like Jon Voight but with a Russian accent), Reagan chronicles Ronny's life chronologically, from his childhood to his stint in Tinseltown to his presidency to his horse riding retirement. "Get in the game, run for office". Oh you betcha.

Reagan is directed by Sean McNamara, a thirty-year-plus veteran of stuff anywhere between fantasy comedies (Casper Meets Wendy) to biographical dramas (Soul Surfer) to last year's On a Wing and a Prayer. I mean you could say a lot about Sean's films but you could never reveal that they're boring. McNamara injects Reagan with a lot of energy and a sense of urgency as he whisks you from one historical set piece to the next. Instead of piling on the schmaltz and possible sentimental sludge, helmer McNamara fashions Reagan into a rather hard-nosed drama (pun intended) with a little dry jocularity, some biting satire, and some goofy self-deprecation. Check out the insertion of the music video "Land of Confusion" and you'll see what I mean. 

Now you're probably wondering who plays Ronald Reagan and well, I'm gonna tell ya. It's Dennis Quaid don't you know and this might be one of the best performances of his career (along with '79's bicycle flick, Breaking Away). Quaid looks like Ron from the profile side and on occasion, gets the mannerisms and facial expressions just right. Heck, he winks to audience but in a good way, as most of his line readings of speeches and soliloquies crackle while running wild. He is supported effectively by a cast of knowns (Voight mentioned earlier, Robert Davi, Kevin Dillon, C. Thomas Howell) playing anyone from film exec Jack Warner to Leonid Brezhnev to Republican Caspar Weinberger. In the hands of another filmmaker, Reagan might come off as a snoozing slog, maybe a wiki page entry with bad, paint-drying sensibilities. With Sean McNamara however, you have capable, lightning-quick editing, solid, crisp cinematography, and stylish, montage clips of good old Dutch getting his trouper on. A win for this "Gipper". 

Written by Jesse Burleson