3 out of 5

Director: Alan Parker

Am I awful for finding this average? Midnight Express is based on a true story of an American who gets caught trying to smuggle a small quantity of hash overseas from Turkey. It starts out as a short prison sentence… then becomes longer… then becomes life. While the Turkish prison may not be tiny cells and bars, its depicted as an awful life, slowly stripping away at the souls of most inmates. From my little world of film, Midnight Express was always talked about as a pretty gritty prison drama. However, it just didnt move me. The story is interesting, but handled unevenly. It lurches between serious and not-serious tones every few minutes, making it difficult to discern how bad were supposed to assume main character Billy is feeling about anything. This also makes the very dramatic sequences seem poorly placed, and the timing of events unimportant (youd never know how many years are passing except for the character mentioning it offhand). The music didnt help either, being of that overdone late 70s/early 80s symphonic variety. By the time Billy has his break with society, its impactful as an isolated scene, but just doesnt work in the context of the film. I dont know. The story is very fascinating, and its acted well and shot acceptably. I just kept waiting for my heart-strings to get torn or bent and it never happened. Oh, Billy.