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| Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 6, 1978 |
Starring:
Bo Hopkins, Brad Davis, Franco Diogene, Irene Miracle, John Hurt, Mike Kellin, Norbert Weisser, Paolo Bonacelli, Paul L. Smith, Randy Quaid
Summary:
Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.
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Director Alan Parker milks naturalistic performances out of his small cast and creates a brutal intensity rarely matched in cinema today. Michael Serensin's cinematography is oddly sedating yet intense, giving the prison and the whole country of Turkey a frightful, alien sort of feel.
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Parker succeeds in making the prison into a full, real, rounded world, a microcosm of human behavior; I was reminded of e.e. cummings' novel The Enormous Room. The movie's art direction is especially good at recreating that world, as in a scene where Hayes and his friends try to escape down an old cistern. And there are visions into the inferno, as in a scene in the madhouse where the inmates circle forever around a stone pillar. The movie creates spellbinding terror, all right; my only objection is that it's so eager to have us sympathize with Billy Hayes.
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Midnight Express is a sordid and ostensibly true story about a young American busted [in 1970] for smuggling hash in Turkey and his subsequent harsh imprisonment and later escape. Cast, direction and production are all very good, but it’s difficult to sort out the proper empathies from the muddled and moralizing screenplay which, in true Anglo-American fashion, wrings hands over alien cultures as though our civilization is absolutely perfect.
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Some of the performances (Hurt, Davis) give it an illusion of depth, but it's mostly expert in avoiding moral resonance and ambiguity: everything is satisfyingly clear-cut, just as every shot and every cut are geared to instant emotional impact. Political, moral and aesthetic problems arise when you try to superimpose the film on the 'truth' it purports to represent. As a head-banging thriller, though, it makes some of Hollywood's hoariest stereotypes seem good as new, and it panders to its audience's worst instincts magnificently.
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Midnight Express is an outrageously sensationalistic movie version of a non-fiction cautionary tale, Billy Hays' account of his imprisonment in Turkey after being convicted for drug smuggling. Parker has upset the book's delicate sense of balance. He uses Hays' dilemma as a springboard for sensationalism, especially sustained depictions of brutality and hysteria. Midnight Express sets a new standard in shamelessness. [28 Oct 1978, p.B6]
Aug 23, 2023
What it supposed to be a slow pace thriller , all the elements of what a great movie supposed to do shines at its maximum capacity, to story gets you from a clear crime to imploring a more "Fitting punishment "...an unforgettable thriller filled with harrowing drama...
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Jun 14, 2019
With Outstanding acting and a Intriguing story,Midnight Express is a triumph in cinema scoring an Oscar for best screenplay and rightfully so.
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Feb 25, 2023
Of all the prison dramas, this is one that was quite the rage in the increasingly distant 70s. It is not exactly one of the best or definitive, but the performances give it something, if not a lot of value.
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Feb 8, 2019
This movie is captured brilliantly but is blatantly racist. It is an autobiographical story of William Hayes, so the story is supposed to be from his point of view. But, racism in this movie is beyond any limit. Completely one-sided, the movie is made in a way so that we sympathise for Mr. Hayes.
1 of 1 users found this helpful10
Sep 25, 2020
0 of 0 users found this helpful00
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