Review of Midnight Express (1978) by Michael B — 06 Oct 2013
If you think that there is nothing worse than death, then you have not seen Midnight Express.
Midnight Express tells the tale of a young American who gets caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey. The film pulls no punches in showing the experiences of the captives in the Turkish prison.
It's intense, gritty and, at times, downright disturbing. It seems like everybody in Midnight Express is covered in dirt and then coated with a layer of sweat.
It's this kind of realism that makes Midnight Express a great film. It's too bad more films today don't follow its blueprint. Midnight Express didn't worry about how much the audience could handle. They wanted to show prison life for what it is and succeeded.
Studios today are too worried about scaring away the audience, when they should be more worried about making a great film.
Midnight Express deserves to be placed on any list of great prison films, along with The Great Escape, Papillon, The Shawshank Redemption and Bridge on the River Kwai (yes, it's a prison film, not a war film.) It perfectly depicts what a person goes through in prison both mentally and physically.
There are truly some things worse than death, lets just hope you won't have to visit a Turkish prison to realise that fact.
This review of Midnight Express (1978) was written by Michael B on 06 Oct 2013.
Midnight Express has generally received very positive reviews.
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