A comedy thriller featuring veteran actor Robert De Niro is airing on TV Tonight (Wednesday, May 7) for free across the UK. This classic from 1988 is often overlooked in conversations concerning the 81-year-old's colossal career, but the man himself claims it contains his funniest ever scene caught on camera. Made by Martin Brest - director of the original Beverly Hills Cop - Midnight Run is a variant on the odd-couple theme. The film follows De Niro as Jack Walsh - a bounty hunter who goes on the run with an accountant who has embezzled $15 million from the Mob. The accountant, played by Charles Grodin - whose underplaying is an absolute joy - looks like a lost puppy throughout the two hour running time. As with all the best road movies - and this is one of the best - what begins as a simple air trip from New York to LA quickly turns into a saga of trains and automobiles, car crashes, and skirmishes with the FBI and a dozen other interested parties. The action flick provided De Niro with his first hit in years, following something of a box office drought after 1984's Once Upon a Time in America. During an interview with AARP in January, 2024 - ahead of the release of Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon - the two-time Oscar-winner praised the film for allowing him to flex his comedic muscle. "You know, there’s this moment I’m very proud of as a comedic actor," De Niro shared. "In Midnight Run. This scene with Charles Grodin where I’m in a phone booth yelling at his bail bondsman, telling him I’m gonna leave him on the hook for half a million dollars by killing Grodin. "I’m going, ‘I will shoot him, and I will dump him in a f **king swamp!’ And Chuck’s standing right there, so I do this quick little thing," notes De Niro, flashing an apparently comforting squirm of a smile, "To reassure him." The subtle moment is a signifier of De Niro’s unique facial dexterity. It shows his range as an actor who can unnerve us in one moment with a possessed and terrifying stare - think Max Cady in Cape Fear - but just as easily make us laugh with a simple flash of the cheek. The film boasts an almost perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes - earning a whopping 95% from the critics and 87% from the audience. Midnight Run airs tonight at 9pm on Legend Xtra . Keep an eye out for that phone booth scene if you decide to tune in.