MIDNIGHT EXPRESS no stars

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 levelled 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 e with unless, of course, you choose to empathise 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.