Review of Midnight Express (1978) by Thomas D — 12 Aug 2010

When Billy Hayes, a young man on vacation in Turkey decides to try to smuggle 2 kilo's of hash back to the United States his life changes for ever. A very deep, submerging movie that is all atmosphere and acting.

It is a really great movie because it is a well blended cake of the good stuff: acting, cast, sets, editing; filming, story, script. It ended up winning two Oscar's in 1979 for Best Music and Best Screenplay I think.

Both are obvious. The music throughout the entire film is low key Turkish, Arabian sounding cymbals and snake bar bagpipes. You end up feeling like you are sitting in an Istanbul Hashish House! The story is very good.

While based on a true story about William Hayes, The plot stays thick. Once Hayes is busted with the hash at the beginning of the movie, his life takes a drastically different toll as he is incarcerated and thrown into a crusty shit hole of a Turkish prison! While there, Hayes befriends other criminals that have been caught.

Many of them for similar crimes, hash smuggling. I guess it was pretty big in Turkey back in the 70's. While in prison, Hayes befriends fellow inmates Jimmy (Randy Quaid) and Max (John Hurt). They all form a plan to escape out of the prison after Hayes discovers his sentence in the prison is a little bit longer then he had expected.

Like an extra 30 years longer! How about that? Their treatment in prison by the guards isn't exactly A-Class either. The movie did have it's flaws, mainly in the department of over dramatic acting sometimes.

It also cannot escape the stereotype formula of a 'prison movie'. None the less, a very deep and tense movie. Especially the beginning when he gets busted, that whole part had me sweating bullets just like Hayes.

The whole time I could not help but picture Matt Damon in the starring role as Hayes. I'm sure Hollywood will be all over it one day like flies on shit, or like Ryan Reynolds on Comic Books, your choice.

Midnight Express = 4.0 starz outta 5, that ain't bad no how.