Oliver Stone's first success in films came with Midnight Express. Several years before Platoon (1986) made him a famous director, he won an Oscar for writing the screenplay of the controversial prison movie.

American Billy Hayes spent more than five years in a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle a large amount of hashish onto a flight home. That much is reality. Most everything else in the film is fiction. As he would show with JFK (1991), dramatic effect is far important to Stone than historical reality.

Of course, director Alan Parker was also responsible for the film's sometimes laughable excesses. Needless to say, the Turks don't come off very well. Alternately, they are corrupt, vindictive, indifferent, backward, and physically and sexually abusive. The Turkish prison is a squalid hellhole, with the guards regularly beating and raping the inmates. The exaggerations are so extreme that they become unintentionally humorous, which may be the film's saving grace.

No, I don't think that prison is or should be a holiday camp. And the film's racism is not as extreme as it has often been labeled. When Hayes has a courtroom speech calling the Turkish people pigs, it doesn't make them so. It just shows the frustration and anguish that Hayes felt when it sunk in that he would remain imprisoned. His character may be more racist than the film itself. At any rate, Turkey has hardly been a shining light for the rest of the world to follow, especially considering the ongoing repression of their Kurdish minority.

My complaints with the film's distortions and manipulations don't come from political correctness. They simply reduce the film's credibility. However, the lurid, surreal and violent depiction of prison life does makes for grand entertainment.

But are we supposed to cheer for Hayes when he bites off the tongue of one of his oppressors? This guy tried to smuggle several kilos of hash, violently attacked fellow prisoners, tried to escape on multiple occasions, and launched into a foolish polemic speech in a courtroom. He's suffered considerably, but he's no hero. Or even an anti-hero.

He's a reckless drug addict who thought that being an American citizen meant having a 'get out jail free' card overseas. Had he boarded that plane and been arrested when he disembarked in the States, he would have served those years instead in another miserable prison. It just wouldn't have been in Turkey.

Hayes is played by Brad Davis. Ironically, Davis in real life was a drug addict. He died of AIDS in 1991, contracted from sharing a contaminated needle.

Several 'name' actors have prime supporting roles. Randy Quaid and John Hurt play Westerners also imprisoned in Turkey for drug possession. Quaid's character is angry and violent, far different from the backslapping yokel stereotype that his characters have since become. Hurt's portrayal of a frail English intellectual was so sympathetic that he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Midnight Express was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Parker), and Best Film Editing (Gerry Hambling). It won for its screenplay (Stone) and its score, by disco synth wizard Giorgio Moroder. (68/100)




Recommended: Yes