I caught two relatively minor and not overly well received buddy cop movies recently on cable, Stakeout and Running Scared, and I have to admit that I find the respective buddy teams of Richard Dreyfuss & Emilio Estevez and Billy Crystal & Gregory Hines to be better than average, even above average. But, I have to imagine I'm in the minority here (even if Stakeout did spawn a sequel). At any rate, I liked the chemistry between these buddy cops even if the movies themselves were just average. Anybody have any other crime fighting duo or team that they would have liked to have seen in another, better movie?

This may be over-obvious, but I always enjoyed the team of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, particularly in Silver Streak (1977?) and to a lesser extent Stir Crazy (1980?).

I love Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. And I also liked Jimmy Smits - I just wish he'd been given some comedy moments as well.

For my money, though, you cannot beat the all American Ninja combination of Steve James - Michael Dudikoff. Michael puts you to sleep, James wakes you up. They're like the Nyquil and Caffeine team.

A cop buddy team that I was really surprised by was the pairing in Exit to Eden, Dan Aykroyd and the usually unpalletable Rosie O'Donnell. There was a time when O'Donnell was someone I could stomach in movies and this (and the sequel to Stakeout, incidentally) was one of those cases. But eventually she started to let her more obnoxious side show through (her "character" in A League of Their Own is one of those cases; it's a movie that I actually like that she nearly ruins every time I watch it).

Not exactly sure if this falls into this category, but Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin we're a heap of fun in Midnight Run. And John Ashton, Dennis Ferina, Joe Pantoliano and Yaphetto Kotto round out a great cast.

The thing I didn't understand about Running Scared was the title. There was quite a bit of running in the film but no one seemed that scared. It was like they just picked two random words and, voila, title.

Same thing with Midnight Run. Good movie, but I do not recall one instance where running at midnight had anything at all to do with the movie.

As I remember it was a phrase used by Joe Pantoliano while he's trying to hire DeNiro into chasing down Grodin. He says something like, "It's a lousy midnight run, for Christ's sake." Maybe it's a phrase common in the bounty hunters business.

This reminds me - the bounty hunter genre has sadly gone to pot. The last bounty hunter film I can remember is Rutger Hauer's Wanted: Dead or Alive. And I'm talking bounty hunter, not any bail bondsmen named Dog.

It has plummeted to worse depths than Dog. The last bounty hunter got bound into a really really bad romcom with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston.

The all time worst case of that would be Blade Runner.

This conversation reminds me of Nick Swardson's Boner Soup.