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| Director: Alan Parker
Actors: Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, Bo Hopkins, Paolo Bonacelli, Paul L. Smith
Studio: Sony Pictures
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $2.95
You Save: $17.03 (85%)
New (7) Used (4) Collectible (1) from $2.95
Rating:  147 reviews
Sales Rank: 61620
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Maltese (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 121 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0767815351
UPC: 043396023222
EAN: 9780767815352
ASIN: 0767815351
Theatrical Release Date: October 6, 1978
Release Date: October 20, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Factory Sealed VHS - Never Opened - (box as shown)
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 147
 Cinematically Brilliant; Morally Reprehensible April 17, 2000
Daniel Harris (Las Vegas, Nevada)
17 out of 23 found this review helpful
On a cinematic level, Midnight Express is an extremely powerful movie. It has a terrific, moving soundtrack. The acting is terrific. The late Brad Davis, who played the lead in this film, threw away what could have been a fantastic acting career because of his own drug use. (The actor was pretty much blackballed after he gained a reputation for showing up to Hollywood parties and film shootings stoned. He eventually died of AIDS.) Some of the speeches in the film are extremely powerful. However, the main character is simply put, a drug smuggler who got caught. The movie does an excellent job of making him extremely sympathetic. If you purchase the newest edition, there's a brief documentary on the real life Billy Hayes. I find his general lack of remorse most interesting. Additionally, the movie takes some liberties with the facts. From what I understand, the first half of the film is fairly accurate. He did caught smuggling drugs out of turkey. He was sent to prison. He did get his feet beaten with a club, and was hit in the groin with the club. (He was not raped, as many reviewers have indicated.) When he had less than two months left on his sentence, he was sentenced to more time. However, it wasn't another 30 years, like the movie indicates. Between time off for good behavior, a partial amnesty to all prisoners, and time served from his first sentence, Billy Hayes had roughly 3 years left when he escaped. The extreme brutality in the last third of the film is simply the product of Oliver Stone's imagination. In fact, Billy Hayes has said that he'd like to make another movie to properly reflect what really happened. (Personally, I think he's just trying to profit more from his crime.) Many reviewers have complained about the brutal way the prisons are portrayed. This movie is certainly exaggerated. However, prisons are brutal places. Additionally, the Turks do beat prisoners on the feet. As another reviewer commented, it's worse than the U.S., but not as bad as other countries. I'd like to refer you to a previous customer review in which the reviewer hypothesizes what would have had happened if he hadn't been caught.
 Real Rating = ZERO! September 23, 1999
16 out of 24 found this review helpful
He got caught with drugs! Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? I don't think so! If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime! This low-life just wants to stab back at Turkey for his mistake. I am an American living in Turkey and it is a wonderful country. This movie does nothing more than show Turkey in a bad light. What do you think happens when you get caught with drugs in America? They slap you on the wrist and send you home?! I don't think so. Save your money and get another film!
 EFFECTIVE BUT... December 24, 1999
R. Penola (NYC, NY United States)
15 out of 22 found this review helpful
OK, if you can sympathize with an idiot who would strap several kilos of hash to his body to smuggle them from a country where penalties for such crimes are often met with DEATH, then you can go with this slick, atmospheric and incredibly violent movie. Admittedly, it gets under your skin, and Brad Davis was mightily effective in the role of Billy Hayes, and John Hurt embodies creepily the stoned out prison mate Billy befriends during his harrowing odyssey. But this movie, directed with typical stylish flair by visual master Alan Parker, never places the blame squarely on Billy's shoulders, poor dumb guy. And while his torturous stay in the Turkish prisons practically smells, it is so dense and well-captured, it did nothing for the image of Turkey, the country -- it is uncompromising and brutally vicious in its depiction of virtually every Turkish location, character and idea, for that matter. If Turkey was such a pit of despair, why did Billy decide to buy his hash there? This movie revolves around a character who is unrepentant and foolish, and while no one should have to endure such human indignation, it is hard to escape that simple fact. Parker's movie, taken on its own terms, has an almost poetic quality at times, though Billy's dismissal of the Swede's advances actually made me laugh out loud, and, by the way, was consummated in the book. With so much depravity at every turn, and hellish imprisonment your destiny, why wouldn't Billy seek another human, even if he happens to be a man?
A True Story? June 30, 1999
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
When you see this movie, it makes you wonder how come ALL Turkish characters in the movie are ugly dumb sadistical perverts (and also pigs, in the main character's "Address to a Nation", in a courtroom scene). Even in the 1950s anti-communist era movies you come by sensible russian spies or pretty russian girls, along with nasty Igors or Ivans. This racist element was perhaps florished in Oliver Stone's mind, to provoke the public interest and sympathy on a drug smuggler by trashing a relatively unknown nation, betting late 70s drug relaxed public would love it (I sometimes wonder how the public would react to this movie if it was released in Reagan's War on Drugs era). I give some credit to Alan Parker for the way he exploited all this to provoke public sentiment. However I do not understand how Oliver Stone got an Oscar for twisting a story to make it sell, in expense of a nation's defamation (then again who cares about that in Hollywood), and turning it into a weak plot and an even weaker ending. If you wanna read the True Story (as true as it can get I guess) go read Billy Hayes' book. If you want to watch the movie just keep these words by Joseph Goebbels (Hitler's Propoganda Minister) in mind: "The bigger the lie , the more they believe it"
Great acting February 5, 2003
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
As a Turkish citizen I cannot help but be at least a little subjective about this movie but I'll try. First of all I thought the acting was great and Parker was also ok. However I do not agree with other reviewers about some of the statements made here. Some claim that the movie took place in a rather isolated environment-a turkish prison, and its depiction of turkish characters shall not be taken as an offense against turkish people. But it is usuallly very hard to make that kind of abstraction and consider the movie within the proper context. Most people unconsciously associate a stigma with both Turkey and her people after watching this movie for the first time.That being said, I also have some personal doubts about the authenticity of the story itself. True, prison conditions in Turkey during the 70's were not perfect, they are still far from perfect. But As far as I am concerned the prison scenes in the film are quite exaggerated and over-dramatized, they are simply anachronistic. What's more, I fail to see how an American citizen during the cold war could be treated like that in one of its closest allies. Turkey's whole foreign policy was, and to a certain extent still is, built on good relations with the United States. Thus I do not think Turkey would really risk it by acting so irresponsibly. I do understand the artistic and the commercial concern behind all the drastic exaggeration. The movie would not have been quite powerful or controversial otherwise. Yet I still think it is quite unfair and offensive to Turkey to portray it as such. After all most ignorant people tend to judge only by their impressions from the movie.
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