Word: niro
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Bruce Willis has based his career on apologizing for being a man. Robert De Niro has based his on not apologizing for being an actor. Neither characteristic necessarily qualifies a man to play the lead in an action movie. But when the bullets are flying, the pyrotechnics are booming, and everyone is ankle-deep in broken glass, the guy who knows how to play charm is bound to look disadvantaged next to the one who knows how to play roles...
...people who usually play this role -- Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Arnold Schwarzenegger -- seem to have been born to it, and often to very little else. What De Niro proves in Midnight Run is that it is a wonderfully actable part. What Willis proves in Die Hard is that it is not one you can ease through, especially if your preparation runs more to body building than to character building...
Would-be action stars need a sophisticated support system, and De Niro has lucked into a lulu. He plays Jack Walsh, an ex-Chicago cop who is now earning a perilous living in Los Angeles as a bounty hunter, returning bail jumpers to their bondsmen. It looks like an easy $100,000 when he is engaged to pick up Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) in New York City and return him to Los Angeles before his bail must be forfeited. In comparison with Walsh's usual large, violent and well-armed prey, Mardukas is soft of bulk, mild of manner...
Like the other players, Grodin gives a nicely calibrated performance as the itch his captor cannot afford to scratch too vigorously. But it is De Niro's work that redeems an inherently improbable plot. He handles guns, quips and tight spots with the requisite elan. He brings something else to the part too: a deftly imagined sense of hard roads traveled before he hit this one, of a past lived, not just alluded to. When you root for him, you root for a man, not a killing machine...
...Teddy Bear, included a street-poet character who was widely seen as a tribute to Miguel Pinero. And like Pinero's. Short Eyes and Valdez's Zoot Suit, Povod's explosive play made the move to Broadway. The script was helped by the casting of Robert De Niro in his first New York stage role in 16 years. Its central character, like the author, was a bright and literate kid who turned to drugs just because they were so pervasive in his environment. Povod, 28, admits that he was addicted for six years...