Midnight Express

"Joey, have you ever been to a Turkish prison?"
-Captain Oveur, Airplane!

From the very beginning of Alan Parker's film, we are thrust into the middle of a situation. A young man seems nervous as he carefully tapes a number of concealed objects to his body. In my post 9/11 mentality, my first reaction was to think bomb -- he's a suicide bomber. But no, he's a college kid in Turkey trying to smuggle hashish back to America. Of course he gets caught and sent to a hellishly inhuman Turkish prision. For being such a flaming liberal, screenwriter Oliver Stone sure does have an almost pornographic fixation with brutality. The prison has one of those great, barbaric wardens (is there any other kind?) who seems to get his jollies by torturing the inmates. In fact, in the world of Oliver Stone (and movies in general), the real dregs of society aren't in prisons, they're running them. That asides, it's a generally well crafted film with a strong performance by Brad Davis who would go on to play Jackson Sholz in Charitos of Fire. Speaking of, this film was produced by David Puttnam who would later go on to produce Chariots of Fire. John Hurt is always a welcome presence in films, and it also features an interesting score by Giorgio Moroder.