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Actors: Brad Davis, Randy Quaid, John Hurt
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Midnight Express |
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Directed by Alan Parker, “Midnight Express” is the true story of Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) a smartass American who got what he deserved – up to a point – in a squalid Turkish prison. Caught red-handed smuggling hash-hish at the airport, he experiences a quick taste of Turkish bureaucracy as everyone wants credit for his capture. His first night, he is brutally beaten by a guard who could possibly have worked for Sadaam Hussein.
When Billy's first trial nets him four years for possession, he somehow adapts with the help of two Westerners and mindful of the Turkish aphorism, “may the time pass quickly.” But a subsequent trial for trafficking earns him thirty years, “to make an example of him.” As he calls the Turkish officials, “pigs,” he realizes that the only person who can help him now is himself, despite visits from his family, a very expensive lawyer, and his girlfriend who implicitly masturbates him through a visitor's window. As Billy sinks deeper into insanity in “Section 13,” there are homosexual advances, both welcomed and unwelcome, and extreme violence when he mutilates an adversary.
Allegedly, the real “Midnight Express” was an network of escape routes, not unlike the American Underground Railroad. In the film, Billy's escape was a little more direct and eventually led the way for the trading of American and Turkish prisoners. Oliver Stones won “Best Screenplay” in 1978.
--Angry Jim Magin, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Midnight Express |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Movie
Actual chase scenes or violence - 40%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 30%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
Time/Era of Movie:
- 1960's-1970's
Crime & Police Story?
Yes
If this is a criminal POV story...
- jail abuse/escape story
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- student
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Body type
- very skinny (man)
Events of movie makes character more...
- aggressive
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Dumb
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- police/lawman
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 40%
Specific kind of enemies?
- captors
Hair color
- bald
Body type
- fat (man)
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Turkish
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- Bulging muscles
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
Setting
Asia/Pacific
Yes
Asian country:
- The 'stans
City?
Yes
City:
- dangerous
Misc setting
- prison
- sewers/subways
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- very gory visuals of deaths and torture
Movie makes you feel...
- concerned
How many deaths in film?
- 3-4
Sex/nudity in movie?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- seeing breasts
- seeing nude male butt
- seeing full frontal--men
How much use of techno gadgets?
- 1 (None)
Kind of violence:
- mental battles
- hand to hand
- guns
Unusual forms of death
- boiling
- eaten
- impaled
Any profanity?
- Some foul language
Is this movie based on a
- book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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