For years friends and colleagues who know of my interest in
films have been asking what I think of Midnight
Express. I’ve always had to apologise and say that I’ve never seen it. This
happened most recently last week and when I got home I finally remembered to
add it as a high priority to my LoveFilm account with the company duly
dispatching it just a couple of days later. Now when someone asks me what I
think of Midnight Express I will be
able to take them, though it might take some time. There is no doubting that
it’s a very good film but it wasn’t quite the film I was expecting and there
are one or two quite major problems with it.
The movie is based on a book by Billy Hayes, played here by
Brad Davis. While in Istanbul with his girlfriend,
Davis attempts to smuggle 2kg of hashish back to
the US
but is caught at the airport amid tighter security following a series of
Palestinian lead hijackings. Billy is arrested and sent to a Turkish jail where
he will spend the next several years.
