Good concept, poorly executed.

good back-story, and good acting

Best movie ever!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

No spoilers in this review.I honestly liked this film and was going to give it a higher score, however when i read more about it because i was interested. I found out that most of the scenes and event are made up or exaggerated to make the film better! this face was a huge disappointment for me as i saw the film thinking that it is based on a book and true story and then finding out it was mostly made up! I mean if you want to make a film like this, make it without implying that it truly happened, rather than making half of the things up! The story of someone being in prison for a small crime doesn't need much creativity as much as creating all the harsh events and environment inside the prison.From IMDB:"The film was released a year after its source book of the same name by Billy Hayes was published, but the story told by Hayes in his book is very different from the movie. Nearly all of the villains and most dramatic events in the film, are made up."

It does not reflect the truth. Anti Turkish propaganda.

Firstly my background is Turkish and my academic background is in history. The unfortunate Turks here claiming this film isn't historically accurate know nothing but a whitewashed version of our history.If anyone doubts this one can look at literally scores of peer reviewed works by Turkish historians documenting the TENS of THOUSANDS who died in Turkish prison in the 60's and 70's. With the single exception of the Soviet gulags, no country on earth had worse prisons with those kind of death rates.Another reviewer mentioned Abu Ghraib. More people died in Diyarbakir Prison in Turkey in any given week in the 1970's than died during the entire US administration of Abu Ghraib.Indeed there are now dozens of memoirs of Turks held in Turkish prisons that show the conditions, torture and sadism we see are accurate

There's no denying that "Midnight Express" is a well made movie. Its director, Alan Parker, is probably the flashiest of British film-makers; the kinetic thrust he applies to his movies makes the work of his predecessors like Lean and Carol Reed seem positively pedestrian but flash without substance amounts to very little. "Midnight Express" certainly has substance, (Oliver Stone won an Oscar for his screenplay), but it's still a very difficult film to like. When it came out accusations of xenophobia were rightly leveled at it; very few western made movies were ever so baldly critical of a European country as this was of Turkey, where everyone in authority is painted as a monster.It's the true story of Billy Hayes, arrested at Istanbul airport for smuggling drugs and sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison. The movie is really nothing more than a chronicle of the horrors he suffered before finally escaping and they are laid on thick and fast. Hayes was not innocent but over and over again the film tells us the punishment did not fit the crime and to prove the point Parker rubs our noses in the degradation and the extreme violence. It's a film not only without heroes but without characters we can empathize with unless, of course, you choose to empathize with Billy who endures every deprivation known to man.Brad Davis plays him as a wounded, weeping angel who is so much better than everyone around him. The camera lingers over his beautiful, battered body the way it might do in a porn film; there is less acting than ego on display. On the other hand there are two outstanding performances, from the late John Hurt, (Oscar nominated), as a drug addicted inmate and from the American actor Paul Smith as a sadistic Turkish prison guard; when he finally gets it the audience is invited to cheer and while the film is purported to be a 'true' story Stone apparently played fast and loose with the facts.Technically it's something of a marvel. DoP Michael Seresin makes the prison almost a thing of beauty while editor Gerry Hambling makes sure it moves very briskly indeed for over 2 hours. It was a massive success, winning 2 Oscars and being nominated for 4 more, including Best Picture. It also spawned a lot of gay Turkish prison jokes and put a lot of people off visiting the country for many years.