Midnight Express (1978) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Alan Parker

Starring:  Brad Davis, Randy Quaid, John Hurt, Paul L. Smith, Irene Miracle, Paolo Bonacelli, Bo Hopkins, Norbert Weisser 

Yes, Billy Hayes is not a likable fella.   He was convicted in 1970 of smuggling hashish in Turkey and, after originally being sentenced for 3-5 years, was then sentenced to life imprisonment.   He did the crime, but does the time fit the crime?   Turkish officials wanted to make an example of Billy, and Midnight Express is a movie which functions as a nightmare.   Billy's Long Island family tries in vain to have him set free, and he slowly loses his sanity in prison.   How he found the wherewithal to escape is based on a series of fortunate events for him.    

Midnight Express is a harsh film to watch, and gripping because of the universal emotions it creates; fear and hopelessness.   Even though Billy is a drug smuggler, we begin to pity him being stuck in a foreign prison for perhaps the rest of his life, clinging to whatever fragile state of mind he has left.    Based on his autobiography, the intelligent and literate Billy did indeed escape from the Turkish prison and successfully crossed the border to Greece (and freedom) weeks later.    Midnight Express ends with Billy, disguised as a prison guard, walking right out the front door of the prison.   The rest of his journey is not depicted, except his reunion with his family in Greece which is done by a montage of still photos.

Since Midnight Express is a forty-plus year old movie, I don't feel bad revealing the ending, and I'm sure the story is well-known anyway.   Midnight Express, Alan Parker's second feature film, is not about Billy's eventual escape, but how bleak things looked for him until that point.   His fellow prisoners, such as an American played by Randy Quaid and a Brit played by John Hurt, are in various stages of drug-induced apathy.   Then, there is the squirrely Rifki (Bonacelli), who snitches on the other inmates.    Billy finds love, sort of, with Erich (Weisser), and they sort of consummate their relationship.   The movie cuts any sex scene short, but Billy admitted in his book that he indeed had an affair with Erich.

Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning screenplay and Parker's superb direction keeps us involved and finds sympathy for characters who are ultimately less than sympathetic on the surface.    Brad Davis, in one of his first major film roles over a brief career cut short by his death from AIDS in 1991, is intense, and ultimately identifiable as a scared, naive man who wasn't cut out to be a drug smuggler.   The scene in which he is captured, with kilos of hash taped to his body, is a lesson in tension and suspense.   

Midnight Express isn't gratuitous in its depiction of the harsh realities of the prison, but instead it focuses on how the prisoners choose to escape that reality, whether it's drugs, sex, or hope.   What remains is vivid and enduring to the viewer.   And who could forget Giorgio Moroder's Oscar-winning pulsating score?